1 Chapter 17 Challenges of police reform in Latin America Lucía Dammert Police forces in Latin America have experienced multiple processes of limited reforms over recent decades. In most cases there is a general consensus that police institutions are not well prepared, equipped or trained to deal with the increasing complexities of the criminal world and the illicit markets that are rapidly developing. This chapter emphasizes the structural limitations of police organizations and the double edge process of militarization and privatization of public security. In a context of high concerns over increasing levels of violence and crime, reforming the police ha become a political issue more than a technocratic one, and the way political debate develops signals the boundaries of policy implementation. The chapter defines future directions for policy implementation as well as research on police reform initiatives that would be key to strengthen rule of law in Latin America. Introduction Police forces in Latin America have experienced multiple processes of reform over recent decades. Since the return to democracy in the 1980s the region has faced an increasing problem of crime and violence that affects governments and citizens alike. In most cases there is a general consensus that police institutions are not well prepared, equipped or trained to deal with the increasing complexities of the criminal world and the illicit markets that are rapidly developing. For centuries the police were perceived as a tool of twisting the law in favor of the powerful and for the repression and containment of the vulnerable (O’Donnell, 1998). In most cases police work involved high levels of violence and low levels of accountability that configured a scenario in which the police were perpetrators of violence instead of the being the arm of the justice system to control and prevent crime (Arias and Goldstein, 2010). Most Latin American governments lacked a concept of democratic policing, despite the fact that “how the police treat people has an important effect on whether they will perceive their government as fair, equitable and efficacious” (Bayley, 1995:5). In fact, most police institutions in the region are widely perceived to deploy high levels of violence, demonstrate low levels of effectiveness and pursue general policing strategies based on profiling those most disadvantaged in society.