Violence and Security at the Urban Margins: the Chilean Response in Neighbourhoods (2001-2019)

Criminal violence concentrates in neighborhoods affected by socioeconomic precarious conditions. In Chile, several long-standing security strategies have been implemented, although scarcely analyzed so far. Based on a quantitative and qualitative research carried out in 2019, this paper reviews the response to the phenomenon. After considering and analyzing the theories that have explained urban violence, our research assumption refers to the fact that there is a gap in the way the authorities conceive and respond to criminal violence and the way citizens perceive them. The research shows the initiatives have been focused mainly on actions aimed at the informal social control of the communities, incorporating in the last decade an urban component that favors a larger scale of intervention in the territories. However, despite these efforts, the degree of penetration by the State in the territories is difficult to establish, at the same time the scope of said response is limited for its inhabitants.