HomeNewsBriefGuatemalan Police to be Equipped with Tracking Chips
BRIEF

Guatemalan Police to be Equipped with Tracking Chips

GUATEMALA / 24 OCT 2012 BY CLAIRE O NEILL MCCLESKEY EN

In an attempt to obtain better control over its notoriously corrupt and unreliable police force, Guatemala plans to equip officers with microchips that will track their whereabouts.

The microchips, which will be placed on the back of police badges, will store information on the officers' movement, reports AFP. This will allow authorities to ensure that police are sticking to their orders, as well as determine if officers were present at the scene of a crime.

Guatemala's interior minister, Mauricio Lopez, also told the press that the colors and fabric of police uniforms will be changed, both to make it easier for citizens to distinguish between different elements of the force and to make it more difficult for criminals to create fake police uniforms.

InSight Crime Analysis

As an International Crisis Group report released in July found, Guatemala's National Civil Police (PNC) is widely perceived as corrupt and incompetent. Last month, authorities arrested a ring of police officers who allegedly carried out extortion, kidnappings, carjacking, and money laundering. The officers reportedly committed the crimes while on duty and used official police identification, uniforms, and vehicles as cover, highlighting the concerns meant to be addressed by the tracking chips.

But even high-tech measures like the tracking chips are no substitute for significant police reform, which has stalled. In the face of Guatemalan criminal gangs and Mexican drug traffickers, the police often poorly trained and outgunned, and understaffed, with only 25,000 agents in a country of over 14 million. Although President Otto Perez has promised to add 10,000 new officers to the force, the current pace of expansion (1,500 new agents are trained every nine months) is sluggish.

Given the political and financial challenges posed by police reform, there is concern that President Perez will deepen his reliance on the military rather than the police for security, a policy that could undermine efforts to overhaul the police force. Since taking office, the president has created four new military brigades to combat organized crime. The Guatemalan Army's fatal shooting of eight protestors earlier this month, however, highlights the dangers of using the military as a substitute for competent civil law enforcement.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

CIACS / 22 JUN 2023

Despite previous campaign bans, Zury Ríos is one of this election’s forerunners, her success due to support from a wide…

ELITES AND CRIME / 22 JUN 2023

Presidential frontrunner Edmond Mulet has run on a promise of change. But ties to candidates accused of corruption cast doubt…

CONTRABAND / 18 MAY 2022

Cattle from Mexico and the Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua help feed the domestic beef markets of…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…