Candidates for the mayor of Lima and the insecurity of citizens. How feasible are your proposals?

“We will catch 200 thieves a day,” he promised in various public appearances. Daniel Urresticandidate for mayor of Lima Can. This is just one of the proposals that applicants for a place in the municipality offer in terms of the safety of citizens.

According to a study of the perception of the city of Lima, how we live in 2021, seven out of ten people believe that the insecurity of citizens is main problem which affects the quality of life in the capital. Is Urresty’s proposal or other similar proposals proposed by applicants in Regional and municipal elections – 2022?

This candidate promises to capture 200 thieves a day, 6 thousand per month, as the main obligation. For Nicholas Zevallos, director of the Institute of Criminology, it is important that candidates demonstrate that such promises can be kept.

“You may ask how we will know if this is the right target or if it is a higher or lower number. We also need to know if Police officer has the ability to do this job together with Serenasgo or if the prosecutor’s office or the judiciary can hold them accountable. If the candidate can demonstrate this, then the offer is good,” he points out.

Zevallos adds that this promise sounds impressive, but without mentioning how it will be funded, its effectiveness is questionable.

technology as an alternative

In its turn, Omar Chehadcandidate for municipal deputies of Lima from Alliance for Progressoffers to purchase surveillance cameras with real-time facial recognition to catch criminals. Rafael Lopez Allaga He is also tech-savvy, though he is involved in creating an app for neighbors to warn serenasgos of criminal activities, as well as creating a 911 number for emergency calls.

And about stealing cell phones, what can be done about selling them on the black market? Gonzalo Joy, a candidate for Together for Peru, points out that these theft sites exist due to a lack of complaints from citizens. In this line, he promised: “We will create a corps of municipal lawyers who will be the defenders of the neighbor.”

How many lawyers will be needed Municipality of Lima to consider every complaint of theft? For Rubén Vargas, former minister of the interior, candidates for mayor in these Regional and municipal elections – 2022 they do not understand the magnitude of the problem they will face.

“The proposals of these candidates seem unrelated to each other, with no evidence that they will have an impact on actual crime and violence. These are general proposals that do not support how they directly respond to specific problems,” he notes.

Vargas adds that citizen security proposals “should always be linked to the rest of the government’s plan, they can’t be encapsulated or isolated because violence and insecurity affect different aspects of everyday life and therefore its shape. across,” he says.

Are candidates lying to us?

The security of citizens is important, why are candidates offering us these unviable alternatives? Alonso Villarán, professor of ethics at the University of the Pacific, gives us some answers.

“I wonder if several candidates are lying to us. Another option is that without deceiving us, they do not take their proposals seriously, because some of them seem impossible,” he says.

Security is one of the main concerns in Peru, so let’s be attentive to the proposals and, above all, to their viability. Let’s choose serious plans instead of populist promises.