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In October the National Assembly (AN) approved in second discussion, a reform of the Ley Orgánica del Servicio de Policía y Cuerpo de Policía Nacional Bolivariana (LOSPCPNB). The reform had been in the works since August of this year. Although the Supreme Court nixed...
Figure produced by FUNDEPRO, charting the deaths of security forces in Venezuela from 2012-2015 (published here) One morning in October 2013 I was sitting in the office of Education Coordination at the Police University (Universidad Nacional Experimental de la...
On April 4th Human Rights Watch and PROVEA released a report on Venezuela’s most recent security initiative, Operation Liberation and Protection of the People (hereafter referred to as OLP). The report is entitled “Power without Limits: Police and Military Raids in...
A picture of Hugo Chávez saluting Simón Bolívar that hangs on a wall in the National Security University in Caracas, Venezuela. © Rebecca Hanson 2014 For years the opposition has appealed to the sharp increase in crime and insecurity to argue that the Chávez and then...
From October 29-31, 2015, the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University hosted a conference that brought together research on violence in Latin America in order to better understand violence in Venezuela. “The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela:...
On July 17 community residents of Caracas barrio Cota 905 went to the Attorney General’s office to protest the deaths of fifteen people that died in “confrontations” during the “Operation Liberation and Protection of the People.” A few days before Gustavo González...
A new collection of essays on Cultural Anthropology‘s Hot Spots blog looks at how Venezuelans have experienced, coped with, and reacted to recent challenges—a dramatic economic downturn, food shortages, inflation, spikes in violent crime, and protests demanding “the...
By: Martha Lía Grajales Pineda, Red de Apoyo por la Justicia y la Paz Originally published December 1, 2014 in El Universal On October 27th President of the Republic Nicolás Maduro, announced the formation of a Presidential Commission for the transformation of police...
Earlier this month President Nicolas Maduro announced a “police revolution” that would “purify” the 141 police bodies in the country. The announcement was motivated by the recent Quinta Crespo siege and the high profile murder of Robert Serra, events that once again...
A few months ago I was in Caracas having coffee with Alexis when our conversation was interrupted by a startling text message. After reading it he shared disturbing news: A police officer friend had been shot outside his house the night before. Alexis is a former...