Towards a contextualization of police reforms in Latin America: Soft politics against crime?

This paper analyzes the police reforms in Latin America in its socio-political context of twenty-first century. The rise of left parties has given important steps for removing violent strategies of police institutions within an inherited war conception of crime fighting, however, the Latin American population demand tougher policies against the few guarantees of personal safety and property. The combination among "hard" policies eagerness by the Latin American population and reforms in this field have common denominators, not at all contradictory, in the humanization process, justice and equality that propose a new police institutional framework in the region.