Posted on Tue, Feb. 28, 2006
Dominican Republic cuts crime with aid of Miami firm
The Dominican Republic has launched an anti-crime initiative that has cleaned up its grittiest neighborhoods, but bigger challenges lie ahead.
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - It wasn't so long ago that the Bodega Carolina in Santo Domingo's Capotillo neighborhood sold goods through a little slot in the bolted shut door.
It was too dangerous outside to let the customers inside.
''We started keeping the door closed after a guy ran in one day and jumped behind the counter, shooting,'' said the store's owner, Mery Berroa. He died there, shot dead by the hoodlums who chased him.
These days, the doors to this mom-and-pop grocery store are propped open.
Just a year after taking office, President Leonel Fernández has made security a cornerstone of his administration. Using an anti-crime campaign designed by a Miami consulting firm and a Florida International University professor, this country has begun taking back barrios once besieged by drugs and lawlessness.
After a pilot program was launched last fall, Capotillo, a neighborhood of 33,000 people that saw 32 murders in the first half of 2005, had just three from August to December. In December, no one was murdered. Now the program has been expanded to 12 more neighborhoods, and cities across the nation are clamoring for more.
''The police brought peace,'' Berroa said. ``We can sleep now.''
Experts say the Dominican Republic is setting a precedent by throwing open the doors of its police department to international specialists from Miami, New York and Colombia. But the question remains whether the nationwide anti-crime offensive can stand the test of time and politics.
''It's a country besieged,'' said FIU's Eduardo Gamarra, a longtime friend of Fernández who was hired to design the program with a team of Newlink Communications consultants.
``The president has had a tremendous problem trying to run a country run amok.''
Among the challenges:
• The country's 32,000-member law enforcement agencies were beset with corruption, including no-show jobs, drug dealing and extortion. The head of the National Police acknowledges that at least 100 officers were fired, 30 in Capotillo alone.
'They were right there -- doing their own business charging `tolls' to the drug dealers,'' said Victor Rojas, 38, the owner of a metal shop. ``They'd ask you for extortion money, and, if you refused, they'd rob or kill you. Now you see police in cars, on foot and on motorcycles.''
• The police department's 911 system was so archaic and chaotic that often no one answered the line. When they did answer, dispatchers often did not have any cops with patrol cars to send out.
For two months, there was no phone at all: Verizon suspended service because of an overdue $4 million bill.
• For two decades, the Dominican Republic has been a transshipment point for South American illegal drugs headed to the U.S. market, often with the complicity of the government. The nation's former security chief is a fugitive in Spain, charged with aiding a drug trafficker.
The first move in tackling drug-infested neighborhoods was profound. The Interior Ministry fired police officers and brought in new ones who had to meet certain criteria to qualify for the new job and the 100-percent pay raise.
The 1,500 officers assigned to the Democratic Security program were screened to weed out the short-tempered and trigger-happy. No one with a history of abuses, violence or corruption accusations need apply. The cops had to fit a ''psychological profile,'' have a high school diploma and be no older than 38.
The idea is not just to flood the neighborhoods with officers, but officers trained on crime scene investigations, community relations and victims' services.
''We are not the same police as before. The repressive police who did not want to be side-by-side with the people, defending them,'' Col. Juan Geronimo Brown Pérez said. ``The results speak for themselves.''
Police chief Gen. Bernardo Santana Páez said there was just one murder in the last three weeks of January, when the Democratic Security Program was expanded to include 12 more neighborhoods.
''The problem is now everyone wants the program in the entire country,'' Santana Páez said. ``This is not something that can be done overnight.''
Residents were mixed on the purchase of a dozen Harley Davidson patrol motorcycles that cost $17,000 a piece -- the amount a regular cop earns in almost 14 years. Ostentatious and not nearly nimble enough to chase criminals up hills and through alleys, the Harleys are likely the most controversial part of a widely accepted program.
Even Gamarra says they were ''overkill.'' But to Interior Minister Franklin Almeyda, they have the right look and sound.
''Someone on a Harley looks like a cop . . . an officer riding the all-terrain motorcycles they used before looks like a delinquent,'' he said. Almeyda said he doesn't know the cost of the program he helps run but said it will cost $1.7 million for retraining the police. Equipment such as forensics labs and cars are expected to cost another $3.7 million.
Santana Páez said the police department is expecting a $125 million international loan soon to help offset the costs.
He said he did not have estimates for the next phase of the program: overhauling necessities such as schools and hospitals.
Las Cañitas neighborhood leader Pablo Vicente is leery.
''We've advanced . . . but there are a few unmet promises,'' Vicente said. ``They promised to improve the health system, create recreation centers and offer incentives to small and medium businesses as a way to develop the area, and we still haven't had those demands met.''
But Santana Páez argued that at least the police part of it is having a positive impact. ''The program is working,'' Páez said.
Copyright 2006 Knight Ridder
All Rights Reserved
