Latin American Legal Studies

Abstract

This article addresses the impact that the constituent discussion may have on the institutional arrangement of the police in Chile. After a review of the existing constitutional regulation, characterized by the high degree of autonomy granted to Carabineros de Chile (I), a genealogical examination of the kind of power that undergirds police institutions is presented, in order to show that theses display inherent characteristics that differentiate them from other organs of the State administration (II). With both antecedents outlined, it is argued that the constituent discussion can lay the groundwork for a process of democratization of the police. The article notices, nonetheless, that democratization of the police is an endeavor that exceeds the formulation of a new legal framework, thus requiring robust citizen participation, both in order for police action to be effectively oriented towards the general interest of citizens (III.a), and for future police reform to be successful, avoiding some of the failures that have occurred in other countries in the continent (III.b).