Abstract
The Colombian National Police inaugurated a comprehensive operational model in 2010. Informed by evidence-based law enforcement models from the Global North, the MNVCC, or the National Quadrant Policing Model, integrates core features of procedural justice, hotspots, problem-oriented and community policing strategies. Just under a decade old, empirical assessments of the model’s impact vary in quality and availability. While the Colombian National Police presents the model as a successful intervention, there is little consensus on the degree to which the MNVCC has affected crime rates or perceptions of insecurity. The core purpose of this paper is to offer insight into the political factors that enable this contradictory narrative. Relying on privileged access to high-level administrators inside the Colombian National Police and other institutions, this study explains how structural features of official crime data—with political incentives specific to the Colombian context—provide the basis for contradicting claims surrounding the MNVCC’s impact.
Highlights
The Colombian National Police inaugurated a comprehensive operational model in 2010
While the Colombian National Police presents the model as a successful intervention, there is little consensus on the degree to which the Modelo Nacional de Vigilancia Comunitaria por Cuadrantes (MNVCC) has affected observable crime rates or perceptions of insecurity
Findings speak to structural contradictions and political incentives that undermine the integrity of criminal justice research that purports to be both evidence-based and objective
Summary
The Colombian National Police inaugurated a comprehensive operational model in 2010. Informed by evidence-based law enforcement models from the Global North, the MNVCC, or the National Quadrant Policing Model, integrates core features of procedural justice, hotspots, problem-oriented and community policing strategies. Relying on privileged access to high-level administrators inside the Colombian National Police and other Colombian institutions, the present study explains how structural features of official crime data—paired with political incentives specific to the Colombian context—provide the basis for contradicting claims surrounding the MNVCC’s impact. Independent research and media organisations have reported increases in the same crime categories, time periods and jurisdictions covered by the official MNVCC evaluations.2 This contradiction remains consistent across the entire period of the MNVCC’s existence. With ample descriptive coverage of these conflicting narratives, the contribution of this study is to provide an explanatory framework that can be useful to scholars interested in structural contradictions and the politicisation of crime and justice data from a Global South context. The paper concludes with forward-looking approaches that account for the findings of this paper, and briefly outlines how researchers and practitioners alike might support the ongoing project of improving citizen security and public safety in Colombian society—a space in which the Colombian National Police will continue to play an important role
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