As part of this assistance, the International Juvenile Justice Observatory IJJO coordinated a group of study visits for the delegation to institutions with expertise in Security and Violence Prevention in Chile,  Northern Ireland and Spain during the months of August and October.  Following these visits and as a result of them, an analytical document will be produced on the successful experiences in the creation of Institutional Designs for Post-Conflict Security.

The delegation’s visit to these countries allowed for an exchange and collection of experiences and roadmaps for the design and creation of security institutions in post-conflict contexts. In this respect, successful Latin American and European experiences were examined, as well as their possible application in Colombia.

The delegation comprised of the Director General of Public Security, Major General Jorge Hernando Nieto Rojas, and the coordinator of Public Security, Catalina González. They were accompanied by an expert from EUROsociAL, Liliana Mesías.

The first destination in their visit to Chile in August last year was the La Moneda Palace in Santiago, where the Colombian representatives for Public Security met with Lucía Dammert, advisor to the Minister of the Interior on Public Security, followed by Luis Vial, from the Under-secretariat for the Prevention of Crime. During the meeting, they discussed the criminal justice system in Chile, as well as the programmes in place for situational crime prevention in the country.

Following the sessions at the Interior Ministry, the delegation carried out visits of a more operational nature – to the offices of the Carabiniers of Chile (Chile’s national police force) and those of the security services of the municipalities surrounding the capital. These meetings allowed the delegation to learn about the interaction between state security institutions and local communities, a very relevant aspect in the analysis of practical experiences.

During their visit to Europe in October, the Colombian delegation on Public Security was received by the Northern Irish Policing Board, located in Belfast. This visit allowed the delegation to learn about the importance of the presence of an independent monitoring body for pubic security policies in a post-conflict State. In the same vein, the delegation visited the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. The delegation had the opportunity to speak with the Ombudsman, Michael Maguire, about the workings of this independent organism which is charged with monitoring the actions of the National Police.

Next, the delegation travelled to Madrid, Spain, where visits took place in the Interior Ministry and the National Police Headquarters. Juan-María Rueda Menéndez and a team from the Sub-directorate General for International Police Cooperation presented, among other subjects, the changes undergone by the National Police Body of Spain during the last few decades.

As the expert in public security from EUROsociAL , Liliana Mesías, explained, this group of international visits have allowed the Colombian delegation to become informed about various issues which are extremely relevant to their work, such as the story of transition of security institutions in the change from dictatorship to democracy, the Nation-territory relationship, and the stakes involved in the interaction between  government bodies and autonomous state institutions which form part of the institutional machinery in the field of public security.

The analytical document on the creation of Institutional Designs for Post-Conflict Security which derives from these study visits will be accompanied by a catalogue of recommendations for its application. Both documents will be presented at a workshop on nationalisation which will take place soon in Bogotá. EUROsociAL is working to continue this process and hopes to be able to carry on making positive contributions to the formation of this new Colombian institutional structure.