Bogotá, a city plagued by insecurity and desperate for a solution

Criminal enterprises, violence and a lack of police are filling Colombia's capital with paranoia. Now, voices of various political leanings are calling for the military to combat the underworld

Footage from security video at a robbed restaurant in Bogotá

This week’s feature is by Sebastian Barriga a Colombian journalist
Josh is in the middle of the Amazon rainforest

The beginning of 2024 has been particularly violent for Bogota. In just a few weeks, its citizens went from fear of street muggings to fear of mass assaults in restaurants, and more recently, of shootings. Over the past week, three shootings have left four people dead: two men who tried to rob a restaurant, a businessman who was the victim of a hired assassin, and a former policeman who defended himself from a robbery. While official figures through January 31 showed that robberies of individuals dropped by 20%, robberies of businesses by 65% and homicides, by 22%, a significant decrease in relation to the same period in 2023 when robberies increased 30% and homicides 3%, in Colombia's capital people do not feel safe.

To understand this spate of robberies, Andrés Nieto, a security expert at the Central University of Colombia, believes one has to go back to 2020 and the COVID-19 measures that curbed the income of criminal gangs. After the restrictions were lifted and the reactivation began, crime also sought to recover the deficit left by the pandemic. "Today we are seeing criminal gangs looking to reactivate their businesses and their income at any cost," Nieto said.

Bars and restaurants in upper-class neighborhoods are a profitable target: gangs can make good profit in a single hit and it is easy to get in and out quickly. This shows the systematization with which these robberies have been carried out. Nieto adds that before 2020, 40% of thefts from individuals happened on public transport, mainly the Transmilenio; as a result of this, the Transmilenio Command was created at the beginning of 2023, specialized in monitoring the system. This reduced thefts - but ended up displaying their activity and driving more aggressive action by criminals.

Hugo Acero, an expert and advisor on security, defense and justice and former Secretary of Defense, says criminal gangs have evolved and are turning into sophisticated companies that seek high profitability from their criminal activity, as a consequence of the growth of drug trafficking. Nieto adds that more than 50 years of armed conflict has left the state in charge of the armed groups and has neglected the criminal gangs.

Bogota also has a shortage of police. The United Nations standard is one officer per 300 inhabitants. Currently, there is one officer per 470, meaning more than 10,000 police officers are needed to hit that ratio.

The mayor of Bogota, Luis Carlos Galan, who took office on January 1, 2024, said that since December 450 new policemen have arrived in the city and 3,000 new officers are expected this year overall. However, Andrés Nieto stresses that there is little point in growing the force if it mainly addresses minor issues such as noise, pets, garbage, drinking in public, fights between neighbors, and other bugbears that can be addressed by other public bodies.

Bogotanos do not have a good relationship with the police. The violence and abuse of power during the 2019 and 2021 strikes; the 2020 murder of Javier Ordoñez at the hands of agents, which resulted in a protest on September 9 that ended with police killing 11 civilians; corruption; and poor results in terms of security have broken citizen trust in this institution. One of the new administration's challenges is to recover that trust, which both experts say is achieved with positive results and forging links between the district, the private sector, the citizenry and the security forces. At first, the measure may generate faster response networks and support to solve cases, but it also opens the door to even more violent situations.

Councilman Óscar Ramírez of the far-right Centro Democrático party is calling for the city to be militarized to make up for the policing deficit. The Bogotá director of the National Federation of Merchants (FENALCO), Juan Esteban Orrego, has called to loosen gun controls so civilians can defend themselves. However, Colombia's history of violence and war has shown that these initiatives tend to generate more violence and repression, as happened with the creation of paramilitary groups.

"Making the carrying of weapons more flexible is not a guarantee of security," says Nieto. "Countries that have tried this option do not reduce citizen insecurity rates, but rather increase the rates of interpersonal violence". This means the police, instead of taking care of crime, end up worrying about armed civilians.

There are an estimated three million illegal weapons in Colombia, raising questions about the need to circulate even more. Acero agrees this will only increase violence and the solution lies in implementing effective plans that can be sustained over several years.

The Security Secretariat headed by Cesar Restrepo presented the "Bogota Camina Segura" plan, which has 11 lines of action including intensive patrolling in areas with restaurants, bars and gastrobars, an anti-extortion group, and Megatomas (high-impact raids) which may produce results this year. While both experts believe this strategy may prove effective, Acero emphasizes that Bogota has high recidivism rates and high rates of overcrowding in prisons. Until this is resolved, it will be very difficult to get criminals off the streets.

Meanwhile, social media and misinformation make the situation seem worse than it is. Bogota has always suffered from insecurity, but prison overcrowding - which in 12 of the city's 19 detention centers reaches 100% - and social inequality significantly impact on the present. Although the administration of the liberal Galán has faced a tough start, it remains to be seen if the solutions he proposes will go beyond punitive measures, a strategy that city residents are already familiar with and that seems not to have attacked the root of the problem, turning insecurity into a repeated difficulty.

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