Journal of Human Security

1.- Introduction

Multiple publications have claimed in recent years that Nicaragua had escaped the wave of crime and insecurity suffered by its neighbors [1, 2, 3]. The Nicaraguan model for community-based policing (COP) was heralded in particular as a success story in a series of reports written by international organizations [4, 5]. A series of donor institutions also praised the Nicaraguan community-based policing model. They suggest that the COP model is a key reason why the country has been able to avoid the serious conditions of organized crime, violence and homicide registered in the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) [6, 7]. The recent wave of political unrest and multiple violent clashes between the national police and protesters that have left over ca. 400 people dead [8] suggests that these claims were overstated. These events have taken many observers by surprise. However, as we observe below recognition of a series of political reforms and changes to police practice, and the Nicaraguan community based model in particular, assist explanation of both the country’s earlier success in combatting violent crime and the current national crisis in political and public order.

Drawing on recent qualitative research [9], in this article we critically consider what is distinctive about the Nicaraguan COP model. In order to consider its strengths and weaknesses the article evaluates the Nicaraguan COP model’s own claims to distinction i.e. that its success is based on homegrown foundations of policing as communitarian, proactive and preventative. The article initially explores the regional setting for community based policing. The article proceeds from this to a direct exploration of the distinctive origins and nature of Nicaragua’s COP model. The Nicaraguan COP model is as much the product of the Sandinista Revolution as later attempts in sync with regional trends towards professionalization and institutional reform. Attention is furthermore given to each of the claims regarding the model’s foundations and consideration made whether current dynamics sustain or problematize their function. In progressing through an analysis of each of the model’s foundational claims it should be evident that the article aims to form a balanced critique of the Nicaraguan COP model. As such, recognition is made of its achievements, but also evidences made of internal institutional challenges and new external threats. In conclusion, we furthermore highlight how the recent reform of security policy and changing police practice have had severe consequences for the conditions of human security in the country. The recent turn from COP to a reactive form of policing has heightened tensions between local communities and the police and contributed to the violent episodes that have taken place in the country in recent months.

2.- A Safe Haven in a Violent Region

Efforts to reform the police forces in Latin America multiplied throughout the region in the 1990s [12], encouraged by the return to democratic rule of law across the region in the same period. The wave of reform matches the trend for the introduction of COP programs in other post-conflict contexts elsewhere in the world [13]. The signing of peace accords between the governments and armed opposition in El Salvador and Guatemala respectively in 1991 and 1996 was particularly significant for police reform. In both cases, the peace accords stipulated the creation of new civilian police forces to replace the former police forces that had operated under the auspices of the military. In the years that followed, initiatives of police reform extended throughout the rest of the region. These processes of reform were strongly influenced by two main trends in international policing.

On the one hand a COP model was adopted based on practices developed in North America and Europe during the 1980s. This model was strongly supported by multilateral institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank, which saw the change as an appropriate path towards more democratic policing [14]. COP aimed to deal with the causes of crime rather than simply responding to it- by empowering citizens, building police community partnerships, improving social services and generating better crime statistics [15]. Street patrols, policy councils and youth services are some of the many programs adopted by Latin American COP models [15]. In Latin America developments focused on COP were often paralleled by another trend towards professionalization and the formation of specialized units—sometimes with renewed linkages to the military. In response to public and media pressure and reactionary political leadership there has also been a tendency to resort to militarized responses. These initiatives rely on reactionary and repressive policies that seek immediate short-term results [16].

Nicaragua does not depart from the general pattern in the region in which states have placed an emphasis on the professionalization of the police and engaged the armed forces in public security tasks. Its adoption of a COP model does, however, predate others in the region. Indeed, instead of an emphasis on force, technology and spending [17], Nicaragua contrasts with other Latin American countries due to its long-term development of a model centered on state-community relations. According to the National Police its ethical aims of prevention and foundation in the community not only permeates the actions of individual police officers, but also guides the structure, organization, deployment and entire philosophy of the national police force [18]. The Nicaraguan Police claim that it is the combination of communitarian, preventive and proactive policing that is at the foundation of its success in retaining order. Put simply it is in this way the police can work “from the community, for the community and with the community” [19].

Commonly the Nicaraguan police and government—paralleled by elements of the donor community including the Swedish Department for International Development (SIDA), Norwegian Department of International Development (Norad) and the European Union—evidenced the success of the Nicaraguan COP model by highlighting the relatively low levels of homicide in the country. Nicaragua registered its lowest homicide rate during the last 15 years in 2014 with 8 murders per 100,000 residents, according to statistics from a police report released in April 2015 [20]. Official statistics from 2016 suggest a further drop to a total of 453 homicides i.e. 7 per 100,000 [21]. These tendencies are contrasted with the rising figures registered in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) [22]. According to police data, these countries collectively saw 17,422 murders in 2015, 11% more than in 2014 [23].

3.- A Communitarian Police Force

Existing studies recognize that the shape and practice of the Nicaraguan COP model is not only the result of moves towards professionalism sparked by the broader trend for COP in the 1990s, but also the result of several generations of change and reform [24, 25, 26]. Secondary sources reviewed for this article also commonly connect the “communitarian” origins of the police force with the country’s experience of the Sandinista Revolution (1978–1990) [27]. Whilst one of three Central American countries to pass through a period of civil war, Nicaragua is distinct from the others given that the Sandinistas not only managed to politically leverage a peace deal, but to militarily succeed in taking power through revolution. The success of the Sandinista Revolution in taking power and its introduction of a political system built on ideas of socialism are significant in providing an explanation for the basis for policing and security established in the post-conflict period. This also contrasts with the timing and origins of COP models adopted in the Northern Triangle. Although the ideological and religious basis of the government has been periodically challenged—both politically and through armed insurrection (Contras war 1981–1990)—the inheritance of ideas resulting from the Sandinista revolution remain evident in current political practice and dialogue.

Cuadra [28] highlights that before the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, Nicaragua did not have an institution that assumed the functions of an independent police force. In the period of the Somoza government, the National Guard carried out these activities as part of its function to secure the internal order of the country; but without specialisation, political independence and the autonomy exercised by the military. It also lacked structure, organisation and clearly defined tasks in this regard. The National Guard is the immediate successor of the “Constabulary” that was created by the United States during their occupation of the country (1912–1933). The Constabulary was founded in 1927 in the context of US intervention, as an armed body that fused together all policing and military functions. This apparatus continued for four years after the retraction of the US Marines (1937) and remained an institution loyal to the service of the governing Somoza regime.

The defeat of the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship also marked the end of the National Guard, and their substitution by the Sandinista Popular Army and the Sandinista Police. The Sandinista Police were founded on the 5th of September 1979. With their establishment, the new government aimed to end the history of open repression carried out by the earlier National Guard. The first police officers of the new national force were mainly young people who had participated actively in the insurrection against the Somoza regime. Although very different from the National Guard, the new police force also submitted themselves to the governing class and their leadership. From 1979 onwards, the Sandinista government decided to separate the functions of defence and security from that of public order. This resulted in the creation of the Ministry of Defence and the Sandinista Popular Army; and the Ministry of the Interior and the Sandinista Police. The New Sandinista Police force initially counted on the advice and training of Panama, but its equipment and professional training drew mostly on socialist policy (and particularly the example of Cuba). From 1979 to 1989, the police force was formally tasked “to guarantee the status quo and property with revolutionary sentiment, confront crime and assist the task of securing the state” [28].

Speaking about this period of time a former police officer recounted the following in an interview [29]:

“What they created was a system to defend the revolution. Everyone was to defend the Revolution and local defence committees were initially structured to provide labour towards the construction and maintenance of basic services, water, light, the street etc. Following this they started with the distribution of basic food stuffs and efforts to defend the revolution through neighbourhood supervision”.

Throughout the 1980s the police formed part of the broad defence of the revolution in which they were assigned the task of preventing crime and counter-revolutionary activities. This was implemented with a strong emphasis on participation from the public. In response to the drastic economic measures adopted by the Nicaraguan government at the end of the 1980s and with the aim of counteracting the legacy of war, the Sandinista Police started a process of experimentation in which a significant reduction was made of its technical, human and material capacities. Significant cuts were made to the budgets of all parts of the state apparatus. At the same time there was an increase in the level of crime. This in turn influenced the capacity and attitude of the police force to exercise the functions with which it had been entrusted.

With limited resources and personnel the Nicaraguan National Police (PNN) was forced to decentralise its responses to crime and manifestations of insecurity. It did this by establishing broad and permanent channels of communication with the community, both through the formation of community-assemblies and maintaining direct links with local residents. In the 1980s, the Nicaraguan police introduced two important elements of their current COP model i.e. committees for the defence of the revolution (Comites por la defenda de la revolución—later to become Committees for Citizen Power-CPCs) and jefes de sector (heads of sector). Whereas the committees would become a key point of articulation between the police and the families, the heads of sector would become specialists in public neighbourhood security.

In 1989, the police force’s position in relation to the Ministry of the Interior was ratified by Law No.65 “Law of the Functions of the Sandinista Police” in which it was defined as an “organ of the Ministry of the Interior”. In contrast to its earlier formal remit to defend the state and popular revolution, the police were now tasked with the protection of the life and physical integrity of the country’s civilian inhabitants. They therefore assumed responsibility for the prevention of crime and preservation of public order. The police were also expected to embody the particular and social values of the country and to provide assistance to other state institutions to comply with the law and to carry out their legal obligations.

In 1990s, following an intense process of transformation and institutional modernization, the relationship between the police and community was redefined yet again. It is important to note the coincidence of these changes with the election of the liberal Chamorro government (1990–1997). The Chamorro government rejected the socialist premise of the earlier government and of its efforts to organize the masses. During this process the National Police implemented the concept of public security as its principal doctrine and established the conception and philosophy of public service and prevention. As such the new model was, as one interviewee has commented, “aimed at 1. depoliticizing the national police and 2. removing party-based alliances”. The intentions of professionalization and modernisation of the police was further accompanied by an effort to strengthen human resources in organisational aspects, as well as improvements in candidate selection and training. In this period they also formally introduced a focus on gender equity as a crosscutting theme within the organization and actions of the National Police [30]. In addition, the Police based their legal foundation on a newly reformed political constitution [31]: “The National Police is a armed body of civil nature. It has as its mission the guarantee of internal order, the security of the citizenry, the prevention and prosecution of crime and other activities specified by law”. The police doctrine is founded clearly in the service of the community and signals that the work of the police only makes sense through its extensive relationship with it. The Law of the National Police defines clearly how to “secure exchanges and collaboration with different civil society organisations with an aim to the joint implementation of solutions to the problems faced by communities” [32]. The Police further strengthened their relations with civil society and established further points of coordination on issues of crime prevention. Particular attention was given to the intra-family and sexual violence. This process culminated in the creation of the Mother and Child Stations. These stations were born out of a joint initiative between the civil society and the National Police, as spaces that provide integrated attention to the victims and survivors of intra-family and sexual violence.

In the process of modernization, the National Police proposed the institutionalisation of the issue of gender in the institutions policies and practices. This is described as a search for a better symmetry in relations between women and men within the institution, and the articulation of an increased role for women in police work [33]. The process of professionalization of the national police in the 1990s also included the introduction of a programme aimed at the prevention of adolescent crime. In 1995 the national police introduced a strategy targeting adolescent crime and related gang violence. In contrast to other Central American countries, adolescent crime was recognised not only an issue of public order, but as a social problem. The programme aimed to address the issue of adolescent crime not by force, but through a system of youth education and promotion. The police established a number of Centres of Youth Formation and Development (Centros de Formación y Desarrollo Juvenil) where adolescents identified by their families and the police were encouraged to enter vocational training programmes and a system of follow up and supervision by designated police officers [34].

These developments lead up to the formal introduction of the current Preventative Community Policing model. On the 20th November 2001, following Decree No 0426-2001, the Director General of the National Police, First Commander Edwin Cordero Ardila established the Integrated Police-Community Policy. This policy is conceived of as an instrument permitting the promotion of a change of attitude amongst members of the Police, and the facilitation of direct relations between the police and the community in order to achieve its institutional mission with increased efficiency and efficacy. Guido [35] indicates that the stated aim of this policy is to contribute to the improvements of the quality of life of the population, and particularly with regards to citizens’ security, guaranteeing the relationship between the institution of the police with the communities, putting in place preventative work and activities aimed at optimizing the quality of police services. The main features of the policy are based on the establishment of social relations connecting with the interests of different social groups in the community: the prevention of crime at the level of the community; a focus on gender and prevention amongst children and youths; respecting human rights and constitutional guarantees for individuals under police custody and their families [35].

In 2003 a further important ingredient of the current COP model was added. Family assemblies (Gabinetes de la Familia, la Comunidad y la Vida) would replace the earlier functions of the CPCs. According to official statistics there are now more than 100,000 people within the network of “social prevention” constituted by the family assemblies and other related community assemblies [36].

The central goal of the current model is the operationalization, mainstreaming and integration of COP as a joint action in all areas of specialisation within the national police. It has its formal expression in the operative plans implemented at the level of sector, municipality, delegation and police district, and national level. The relationship between police and community is established principally through visits to homes, community and religious leaders, organizations for social education and protection of children and women, amongst others. It encourages the open participation of men and women and their proactive contribution in proposals for prevention and solution of different problems that affect their rights and freedoms.

4.- Proactive Responses to Insecurity

Family assemblies and heads of sector are two of the distinctive feature of the Nicaraguan community-policing model. Indeed, it is these two features are largely recognized as enabling the Nicaraguan police’s claims to proactivity with and within the community. These “social technologies” also stand out in contrast with the more costly technologically driven and patrolling strategies used by other COP efforts in Central America.

The family assemblies were established to renew and to continue the work of the earlier CPCs as participatory-mechanisms for the expression of popular concerns and interests. According to Article 290 of the 2013 Constitution the gabinetes de familia (Family assemblies) are organized by:

“…individual adult men and women, teenagers and pensioner that live in a community, to reflect on and work together to promote values and family unity, self-confidence and mutual esteem, responsibilities, rights and obligations, communication, co-existence, understanding and a spirit of community so that they form coherence between how they think and act”.

By setting a schedule of regular meetings and workshops, the assemblies are meant to create spaces where a series of issues facing the community can be openly discussed and resolved i.e. health; education; sanitation; the promotion of local culture and religious festivals; citizens security; the promotion of the rights of women and children; the protection of families and their rights; the prevention and attention of violence against women, inter-family and youth violence; training and organization to confront natural disasters, promotion of community identity, and humanitarian assistance to cases of abandonment, disability and dementia. The family assemblies are widely seen by the people we interviewed as having a significant role in the solution and mediation of intra-familial violence.

With regards to issues of crime and security in the community, the gabinetes de familia act as a point of direct articulation between community and the police. This is further facilitated through the direct participation in assembly meetings and seminars of the police’s own heads of sector (jefe de sector). These are community police officers that, in contrast to other Central American policing models, live in rather than just patrol local neighbourhoods and communities. Indeed, the jefes de sectors are often recruited from within the same community that they serve as a police officer. They cultivate close community ties through door-to-door visits with their neighbours and their participation in meetings with local residents. They also represent a point of articulation with the national police and the state. As such they ensure that information gathered from the community is passed directly up through the chain of command with the national force. As one sector head stated in a recent article “Our mission is to guarantee citizen’s security in all aspects, so that the people are at peace…and it is the jefe de sector that has the role of approaching both the police and the community, so that the community feels secure and knows to who they should turn in trying to resolve their problems” [47].

In addition to these two key features of the Nicaraguan policing model, proactivity in terms of the provision of quick responses to community concerns and interests has been aided by the operation of the Centres of Youth Formation and Development (Centros de Formación y Desarrollo Juvenil) in Managua and Bluefields—both cities with significant problems with juvenile crime (Rodgers 2013). The centres were set up by the national police in 2011 with the expressed intention of creating spaces to rescue young people who have become addicted to drugs or who had become involved in criminal activities and gangs. A series of international donors have supported these centres, including the Spanish government and the European Union. The Centres provide these young people with a place to stay, to take part in social and sporting activities, to learn about citizenship and to receive vocational training. During the opening ceremony for the Centre in Managua the First Commissioner of the National Police Aminta Granera commented [48] on the role that the centres were to play:

“The police are part of the community, not something distant from it…it is important that it moves in unison with the feelings and life of the community. It is from there that it can privilege prevention, intimacy, and the protection of people in the community. The Youth Centres are the deepest and visible expression of this spirit of the Police, attempting to come close to young people in delicate situations, in situations of risk, not to punish them but to open a space for their regeneration and formation. It is not about accompanying them to the prison, but accompanying them in their education”.

5.- Preventative Policing

The first voices critical of hard-line approaches in dealing with youth violence in Central America appeared in the late 1990s [65]. Research supported by universities and NGOs questioned the effectiveness of reactive models in policing dealing with this problem. Of the Central American police institutions, the Nicaraguan police were the first to address the difficulties of a predominantly repressive approach toward youth violence in 2001 [65]. Experience from the operation of a reactive approach, called Plan de Pandillas (Anti-gangs Plan) demonstrated that whilst successful in immediately reducing youth violence, it was less successful in delivering sustainability and legitimacy. It was argued that the Plan de Pandillas would not resolve the underlying causes of youth violence. On the contrary the reactive approach could turn the majority of the young and predominantly male adolescents into threats to security.

In contrast to this experience, an alternative project was implemented by the local government in the nearby town of Masaya combining measures of crime control with prevention activities. The successful outcome of this project spread to other cities such as Jinotepe and Leon and would also become one of the foundations for the updating of citizens councils and the introduction of the family assemblies mentioned above [65]. Also importantly with regards to the prevention of youth violence the project would result in the implementation of a broadly new strategy i.e. 1) an approach targeted to the criteria of different groups, 2) home visits to families with adolescents in risk groups, 3) organisation of civic work for youth at risk and 4) prevention activities at the community level. The Police also established a Directorate of Youth Affairs in 2003 at the national and departmental levels. It would be this Directorate that would also assume responsibility for the management of the Centres for Youth Training and Development—also mentioned above. This change towards an understanding that is Más Vale Prevenir Que Reprimir (Better to Prevent than Punish) is attributed with significant improvement in the indicators of youth violence in the country [66]. The number of youth gangs recorded in Managua decreased from over 118 in 2002 to approximately 34 in 2005 [67].

In an interview in February 2017 [68], (Now First) Commissioner General Xavier Davila Rueda made the claim that the operation of the jefes de sector were to a large degree responsible for preventing the spread of armed gangs and narcotics in Nicaraguan cities. They were key to the predictive and analytical capacity of the police. When attempts have been made by gangs and criminal cartels to establish themselves in communities the interaction between the sector heads and the family assemblies meant that they were immediately informed on, allowing for further targeted action by the national authorities to be taken. The jefes de sector represents in this way a low-tech mechanism with which to form human and low-cost lines of communication between the community and state authorities. Moreover they enable sensitivity by the police to the particular concerns of the local community such as robbery, drugs and delinquency. This is also significant given that the level of technical support to the Nicaraguan police—in rural areas in particular—is comparatively low (e.g. in my interviews with jefes de sector in Bluefields it became clear that police officers do not commonly carry radios, do not have regular access to information technologies, nor have designated motorised transport).

In discussing the role and importance of the jefes de sector in a recent interview [69] a former police officer offered the following comment:

Community is a central element of community policing, but something else is also important: control over territorial information…With jefes de sector there will be one for the urban area, one for the semi-rural, and another for the rural area. The jefe de sector should have an operative mandate…a perimeter of 5 km ${}^{\mathrm{2}}$ , and they should know that in this area there is an area of 2 km ${}^{\mathrm{2}}$ with 400 houses, that there are commercial areas between the houses, there is a cafe, ten businesses, the owners of these are so and so, their specializations such and such…They should know all of the details of their zone, and about all of the people who live there…A distinctive feature is also that they not only visit, they live there. The preventive work is to be seen in the neighbourhood, to celebrate a child’s birthday with the piñata, close the street if necessary…They are invited to all these kinds of event. So, for the jefe de sector their operative mandate are all local details, whilst for the local community this is balanced with them being present in the community and walking the streets.

6.- Conclusions

With its low levels of homicide and violent crime Nicaragua stands in strong contrast with the countries of the Northern Triangle. As has been discussed above, it is evident that the Nicaraguan model for community based policing (COP) has contributed significantly to these conditions. The Nicaraguan model for COP differed from others in the region due to its rejection of reactive policing and development of a system that emphasizes communitarian, proactive and preventative goals. Through the use of these guiding values and institutional structures the Nicaraguan COP model has until very recently depended much more on “social capital” (networks of relationships between people among people who live in a particular society), than other Central American COP models where high levels of financing, numbers of personnel and electronic information technology play a greater role [85]. The Nicaraguan COP model still carries some of the revolutionary ideals of Sandinista history. These are put into practice through the formation of a series of specific institutional structures, key amongst which are the family assemblies (gabinetes de familia), the sector or neighborhood officers (jefes de sector) and youth centers (centros de formación y desarrollo juvenil). Through these structures the national police were able to not only generate a strong contact with the local community, but ensure the rapid exchange of information regarding crime and local development concerns. They also enabled the police to proactively identify particular threats at an earlier stage and efficiently intervene to prevent and remove these risks. This has been particularly effective in containing the spread of youth gangs and organized criminal cartels attempting to operate in urban centres on Nicaragua soil.

Whilst in this way we corroborate earlier claims regarding the success of the Nicaraguan COP model, we also recognize that this model is currently under erosion. Changing circumstances make claims that it represents an example of good practice in public security increasingly untenable. The extraordinary violence and public unrest of recent months demonstrate that trust between the police and community, and the government and community are no longer what they once were. Public opinion regarding citizen’s security and the efficiency of the police appears to be changing. Homicide levels are down according to official police statistics, but other reports suggest that robbery and drug related crime is growing in the cities. Whilst less crime is reported, indicators also suggest that fewer people trust the police to follow up on reported crime. It is also clear that the Ortega government recent efforts to bolster presidential power by restraining political opposition in parliament, by quelling public protest in the streets and by placing a series of public institutions directly under its control has had an impact on public trust in the state and police. As a result of the institutional changes made by the government, the police now have a permanent first commissioner and many of its social programmes, such as with women, removed from their control. Whilst the government argues for this in terms of bureaucratic efficiency, the removal of these responsibilities from the police has also removed vital points of communication with the community. The key institutional mechanisms mentioned above continue to function, but increasing critique is made of the way in which the Ortega government’s particular brand of ideology i.e. Sandinismo mixed with conservative Catholicism, has intervened in their operation. Whilst there has been a long process to bolster professionalism in the national police, the tendency to promote some officers on the basis of party loyalties has resulted in an overly top-heavy leadership structure that it is little interested in innovation or renewal. Party alliance appears to be proactively replacing democratic communitarianism as the defining characteristic of who receives attention from these instances.

Concurrent with a politically driven erosion of police professionalism, it is also evident that there are a series of challenges to the Nicaraguan COP model’s claims to be proactive and preventative. Indeed, it appears that issue of political alliances is at least a feature of the growing inability of the national police to respond to the growing levels of violence and insecurity developing in the Atlantic Autonomous Regions. In this context the police not only appear partisan, but are also failing to actively prevent rising tensions and further conflict. Certainly there seems to be a persisting gap in cultural and political respect and understanding between authorities in Managua and customary defined authorities of the Autonomous Regions. As we have described above, whilst the jefes de sector have had considerable success in urban areas, the low numbers of police in general and their frequent isolation with little technical and logistical back-up in rural areas is also a cause for concern. Claims of the involvement of jefes de sector in corruption and the misuse of power need to be taken seriously, particularly if this also takes on a partisan character.

The move by the national police to rely on specially trained armed units can also be seen as a politically driven move away from preventative policing. Whilst argued on the basis of a necessary reactive response to a recent rise in violent crime, the appearance of these units on neighbourhood patrols and civil protests has added further to the perception of institutional crisis and a politically driven attack on the foundational democratic values and action goals of the police. This has never been more evident than now in the context of current violent confrontations between the Dantos Brigade, para-police and community and opposition organizations. Indeed, as the institutional structures stagnate because of political favouritism, there is an increasing gap between the revolutionary rhetoric of its upper command with the actions and lived reality of economic hardship and exclusion experienced by both those newly drawn into its ranks and the community amongst which it aims to win hearts and minds. Changing regional conditions do not make this situation any easier. At a time when democracy is constrained, socio-economic differences are worsening and police presence is low and increasingly lacking in trust, it is becoming easier for the gangs and criminal cartels to solidly establish themselves in Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan model of community policing has functioned well under previous moments of extreme stress, such as the Contras struggle, but the institutional conditions surrounding its anchorage in the state and community have changed significantly.

Taken together these conclusions suggest that in a search for a critical foundation for human security—one not only concerned with public order, but public well-being—Nicaragua needs to end the drift away from the original principles established for its model of community based policing. This we suggest should include reconsideration of the sociological and democratic foundations of the models original principles i.e. policing not in service of an authoritarian government but of service to and integration within the community. The effort to place these principles in practice serve as an explanation of the country’s success in limiting crime in the past despite extremely challenging socio-economic conditions. The current government’s apparent departure from adherence to these principles is at least part of the negative tendencies and current failures in policing. The model’s, albeit now more historic than current emphasis on community or “social capital” also provides Nicaraguans, and perhaps populations beyond its borders, with a reminder that there are significant alternatives. In other contexts, analysts make a similar point in stating that an increase in public order policing will not help. In response to a context of social public order gone wrong the police need to become complicit or partisan towards the citizens that they serve [86]. Indeed, as has been more obvious in the current national crisis, the history of COP in Nicaragua makes evident that there are alternatives to the dominant regional trends of policing [87, 88] e.g. that emphasize centralized leadership, militarization and an over reliance on the use of expensive technologies (information, communication, monitoring, weaponry etc.) at the expense of trust and human security.