Second Meeting of the SCA-ECLAC Working Group on the “Reference Guide to Police Administrative Records”

On Friday, August 16, within the framework of the Biennial Program of regional and international cooperation activities of the Conference on Statistics of the Americas 2024-2025 (SCA-ECLAC), the Second Meeting of the SCA-ECLAC Working Group on the “Reference Guide on Police Administrative Records” was held, with the participation of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) of Mexico as the coordinating country of the Working Group (WG); the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence (CoE) and the Statistics Division  of ECLAC, as technical co-secretaries; and representatives of the statistical offices and the police of the member countries of the WG: Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

Adriana Oropeza, Coordinator of CoE, recalled the Guide helps countries in the region implement the UNODC’s “Guidelines for the production of statistical data by the police.” Six of the twelve dimensions from the Guidelines were used to identify the type of information available to the police. Human Resources, Criminal Acts, Arrests and Detentions, Seizures, Use of Force and Firearms, and Professional Conduct.

Adrián Franco, Vice President of INEGI, pointed out that “one of the advantages of this undertaking is the link between the police forces and the national statistical offices for the design and implementation of public security policies”. Pablo Villatoro, from the Statistics Division of the SCA-ECLAC, emphasized that it will also contribute to strengthening and improvement of police administrative records and thus “the availability of relevant and quality data so that the countries of the region can design and implement efficient and high-impact public policies on security”.

The Statistical Offices of Chile and Guatemala presented progress in data collection, while the National Police of Ecuador and the National Police of Peru presented case studies of police information systems in those countries.

We are grateful for the participation of Claudia González of the National Institute of Statistics of Chile, Yocelin Zamora of the National Institute of Statistics of Guatemala, Peter Abad of the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics of Peru, Captain Roger Chipa of the National Police of Peru, Mildred Martínez of the National Statistics Office of the Dominican Republic, Yasmin Quintero of the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Panama, and Lieutenant Brayan Pasquel de la Torre of the National Police of Ecuador.