Criminal Laws

I don't think capital punishment is a good solution to reduce criminality. There's no evidence that killing criminals will actually reduce crime rate. In fact, general tendency is going on to remove capital punishment as an actual corrective way to enforce the law. Moreover, I think that crime, as many other social issues, has more to do with prevention rather than repression. Therefore, I really don't see any pro's in capitol punishment. On the contrary, I think authorities should work on improve our actual jail system, driving initiatives to educate and reform criminals and therefore give a strong strike to criminal behavior and anti-social conduct.

Following the same argument, in order to reduce criminality there's no discussion about the role that police plays; but the problem can't be limited to that. I think civic education and a more equal society must have a main role in crime fighting strategy.

Now, about increasing crime rates, I think that's more a TV fiction than a reality. I mean, it's true, there's crime in Chile...but there's no evidence to support the general insecurity picture that mass-media often try to present. Comparing Chile with other latinamerican countries, serious crimes such as kidnapping, mass murderers, rapes, etc. doesn't appear to be the main issue. Probably crime rates increase during high unemployment cicles (there are a few studies supporting this) but, as I said before, there's no evidence to affirm that that is the general tendency. I tend to think that we live in a pretty safe country...and that's what most of european and north-american tourists travelling chile say about it.