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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Two members of the Carabineros patrolling during the 19th of
September Armed Forces Day parade in Santiago in 1985
Courtesy David Shelton
During the colonial period, there existed a fifty-man
police
unit known as the Queen's Dragoons, which was responsible
for law
enforcement in the Santiago area. This force changed its
name to
Dragons of Chile (Dragones de Chile) in the early years of
the
republic and, by 1850, had increased in strength to 300.
It was
subsequently incorporated into the army as a cavalry
regiment. By
that time, civil police forces had also been set up in the
major
population centers. In 1881 the Rural Police Law created a
separate
rural police force in each province, and six years later
each
municipality was authorized to set up its own local police
force.
In 1902 four of the army's seven cavalry regiments were
ordered
to detach a squadron apiece to form a new entity to be
known as the
Border Police (Gendarmes de la Frontera) and to be engaged
primarily in the suppression of banditry in the less
developed
regions of the country. Despite being administratively and
operationally subordinate to the Ministry of Interior,
this unit
remained ultimately under the jurisdiction of the minister
of war.
Five years later, it acquired a larger establishment and
changed
its name to the Carabineros Regiment (Regimiento de
Carabineros).
Although still lacking a formal permanent institutional
existence, in 1909 the Carabineros established an
Institute of
Instruction and Education, which admitted its first class
of police
cadets in August of that year. Five years later, the
responsibilities of the force were extended to railroad
security.
Finally, in 1919, the force acquired a formal independent
existence
under the Ministry of Interior, and its title was changed
again to
the Carabineros Corps (Cuerpo de Carabineros). Six years
later, by
which time the corps consisted of 204 officers and 3,760
enlisted
personnel, the Carabineros acquired a new organization
that
combined their various independent squadrons into five
Rural
Service Regiments, together with a Railway Regiment,
Training
Regiment, and Customs Squadron, the latter based at
Valparaíso.
The strength, resources, and qualities of the various
municipal
and rural police forces varied enormously. In 1924, in an
effort to
provide a degree of uniformity, the country was divided
into five
police zones, with their headquarters at Antofagasta,
Valparaíso,
Santiago, Talca, and Concepción. The same law divided the
police
functionally into three divisions: the Public Order
Division,
entrusted with general peacekeeping on a relatively
passive level;
the Security Division, with a role of active law
enforcement; and
the Identification Division, which embraced record keeping
and
general crime detection. This arrangement provided for the
coordination of the activities of the various existing law
enforcement agencies, on a zonal basis, with the General
Directorate of Police (Dirección General de Policía) at
the
national level. At that time, in the mid-1920s, the
various police
forces numbered 728 officers and 8,628 enlisted personnel.
Although now downgraded in importance, the provinces
and the
municipalities continued to maintain their individual
police
forces. Only the municipal police of Santiago and
Valparaíso seem
to have been effective, however, and in 1927 all law
enforcement
agencies were incorporated in a single national force, the
Carabineros of Chile. The force had a total strength of
1,123
officers and 15,420 enlisted personnel in 1929.
In 1993 the Carabineros numbered 31,000, including
officers,
noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and a significant women's
element.
Although normally under the jurisdiction of the Ministry
of
Interior, the Carabineros were put under the Ministry of
Defense
during the period of national emergency following the
overthrow of
the Allende regime. Despite the return of civilian
government in
1990, the Carabineros remain subordinate to the Ministry
of
Defense, but their operations are coordinated by the
Ministry of
Interior. The Aylwin administration authorized an increase
in
strength of 1,100 annually over the 1991-94 period.
Data as of March 1994
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