Abstract

DAMMERT, Lucía. The relationship between confidence and insecurity: the Chile case. Rev. Crim. [online]. 2014, vol.56, n.1, pp.189-207. ISSN 1794-3108.

Insecurity has been directly linked to the increasing levels of citizens' mistrust particularly of police institutions. For this reason, the objective in this article is contributing to the discussion in order to understand the Chile's special situation with respect to these variables in the face of the high levels of insecurity and/or citizen fear observed; but, notwithstanding this, the greater average levels of confidence placed in their main police institution, the "Carabineros". The methodology used from the interpretative paradigm is of a qualitative type, with interviews and focal groups carried out in the city of Santiago at the end of 2008. In the first place, the complexity of giving an answer to the phenomenon is evidenced, and a relationship was found between interpersonal confidence and the rating of the police work as a way of understanding institutional trust; these variables act separately without being it possible to determine their individual specificity. However, they let understand the contradiction lying in the high confidence placed on the Carabineros and the impression of poor security coming from a feeling of helplessness or low interpersonal confidence and the perception of certain inequality in police work depending on social strata. This last finding explains the need to delve deeper into police evaluation criteria, and concentrate resources on the most disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.

Keywords : Analytical criminology; confidence; trust; police; insecurity; criminal justice.

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