Department of Political Science and Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
School of Government, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
Nat Hum Behav. 2023 Jun;7(6):861-873. doi: 10.1038/s41562-023-01600-1. Epub 2023 May 11.
Governments in low- and middle-income countries routinely deploy their armed forces for domestic policing operations. Advocates of these policies claim they reduce crime, while detractors argue they undermine human rights. Here we experimentally evaluate a military policing intervention in Cali, Colombia. The intervention involved recurring, intensive military patrols targeting crime hot spots, randomly assigned at the city block level. Using administrative crime and human rights data, surveys of more than 10,000 residents, and firsthand observations from civilian monitors, we find little to no credible evidence that military policing reduced crime or improved perceptions of safety during the intervention. If anything, we find that military policing probably exacerbated crime after the intervention was complete. We also find evidence of increased human rights abuses in our survey data (though not in the administrative data or in the firsthand observations of civilian monitors), largely committed by police officers rather than soldiers. We argue the benefits of military policing are probably small and not worth the costs.
低中等收入国家的政府经常部署其武装力量进行国内治安行动。这些政策的支持者声称，这些行动可以减少犯罪，而反对者则认为这些行动侵犯了人权。在这里，我们对哥伦比亚卡利市的一项军事治安干预措施进行了实验评估。该干预措施包括针对犯罪热点地区的反复、密集的军事巡逻，在城市街区层面上进行随机分配。利用行政犯罪和人权数据、对超过 10000 名居民的调查以及平民监测员的第一手观察，我们几乎没有发现任何可信的证据表明军事治安在干预期间减少了犯罪或提高了安全感。如果有的话，我们发现军事治安在干预完成后可能加剧了犯罪。我们还在调查数据中发现了侵犯人权行为增加的证据（尽管在行政数据或平民监测员的第一手观察中没有发现），这些行为主要是警察而不是士兵犯下的。我们认为，军事治安的好处可能很小，不值得付出代价。
