The usefulness of a modern and dynamic national security perspective, in the fight against organized crime in Latin America

Abstract

The main aim of the present article is to suggest the usefulness of a modern national security approach to analyze Latin American organized crime. This approach should transcend traditional public security perspectives to also incorporate broad and multi-causal explanations. The internal structure of the article includes an introduction, a main body and brief conclusions. First, from the point of view of citizen security, we will check some topics related to Latin American organized crime, focusing on three factors that increase and expand crime. Then we will analyze the current National Security concept, as a useful tool to be employed in the fight against this transnational threat. Finally, we will make a brief description of three regional cases where a modern national security perspective includes, as a relevant problem, organized crime.

The article is particularly relevant since the dimension reached by organized crime in Latin America is a cause for concern, particularly in its most relevant manifestation: drug trafficking. This is a highly complex process that includes the cultivation, manufacture, trafficking, wholesale and retail sales to final customers of illicit substances. Although there is a large bibliography that shows the size and complexity of this threat, its direct impact on the high levels of different types of violence should be highlighted.

Governments are making great efforts to neutralize this situation. Five years ago, the InterAmerican Development Bank reported that each year Latin American nations spend more than three percent of their Gross Domestic Product fighting against organized crime. But all those efforts have not yielded the expected results, as the Organization of American States concluded. The regional institution believes that without structural changes in current strategies against illegal drug trafficking, the general situation of the hemisphere will be worse in the medium term.

From this point of view, considering not only the complexity of the threat but also the poor results obtained in the fight against it, our proposal is to make a new approach to the issue, from a modern conception of national security. This conception must include the traditional perspectives of public security, and also broader approaches linked to citizen security.  Public security is a service provided by the state and basically refers to the prevention and suppression of crime, preserving and ensuring public order. Citizen security, on the other hand, has a direct link with the exercise of duties and rights, and social cohesion. In Latin America, the closest antecedent to current citizen security is the concept of “multidimensional security,” which was approved by the Organization of American States in 2003. Another antecedent is the concept of “human security,” which was conceived by the United Nations Development Program in 1994.

In terms of citizen security, insecurity and crime are not the effect of a single cause. Instead, they are the consequence of a combination of several factors (for example, dysfunctional families, social exclusion, environmental degradation, etc.). Citizen security proposes to combat them by applying public policies that include and articulate measures aimed at improving the social, political and economic situation.

A focus on organized crime in Latin America from the perspective of citizen security helps us to obtain a holistic framework on this topic, and to detect "key facilitators". In this sense, there are three main factors that show a direct influence on the spread and worsening of organized crime in Latin America. These factors are not limited to the level of public security, reaching the wide sphere of citizen security, and they are corruption, impunity and state weakness.

In a context of state weakness and insufficient "culture of legality", the public sector not only shows high permeability to criminal influence, but also tries to secure contacts and consolidate communication channels with illegal actors, closing covert agreements with them. This is the so-called "gray zone policy". In this kind of model of coexistence and interaction between legal institutions and criminal organizations, the latter helps the former to guarantee political control and stability. At the same time, legitimacy, impunity and even prestige are obtained in the political and social circles.

Impunity, which means "crime without punishment", is another important factor in the rise of organized crime in Latin America. It shows a direct link with other facilitators, especially corruption. Impunity has a direct influence on the perception of illegality and erodes citizens' trust in legal institutions and authorities.

Finally, the fragility of the state is another key factor strongly related to the increase of organized crime in Latin America, because illegal groups take advantage of every failure linked to governance. Perhaps the most common manifestation of the link between state fragility and organized crime is related to the state's inability to effectively control its territory. The specialist bibliography refers to these places as “stateless” or “black hole” sectors. This failure helps to consolidate the illegal actor, who becomes a "de facto" local political authority, deploying his activities in a highly autonomous way. Some investigations based on cases from Mexico and Brazil show that organized crime acts in this way not because it is concerned about people's well-being, but because it is a tool for social domination and, ultimately, for the accumulation of power.

As already mentioned, a modern conception of National Security could be an effective instrument to combat this transnational threat in Latin America. It allows the traditional perspectives of public security to be articulated with broader approaches to citizen security that focus on corruption, impunity and the fragility of the state. Today, national security includes a comprehensive approach to heterogeneous threats and risks and can be applied in the fight against organized crime. The case of Spain confirms this statement.

However, the success of this proposal is conditioned by the current perception of national security in the region and its evolution in the last forty years regarding the so-called "Doctrina de la Seguridad Nacional" (Doctrine of National Security). This concept refers to a kind of directive that was adopted by several Latin American governments, most of them authoritarian regimes, during the Cold War.

In recent years, there have been serious attempts to consolidate this modern approach in Latin America. In this sense, new laws and doctrines were implemented in Mexico, Guatemala and Argentina, with full respect for individual liberties and human rights. In those three countries, the state ratified its commitment to combat organized crime, and the topic was included in its national security documents.

The viability of these attempts in Latin America, and other initiatives that may be implemented in the future, are strongly conditioned by two factors: a real and true commitment by political elites to fight organized crime, and the definitive closure of the anachronistic Doctrina de la Seguridad Nacional, associated with the Cold War era.