Moreno Herrera, Patricio Andrés; (2025) Police innovation in Chile: A Study of the Crime Prevention Quadrant Plan implemented by the Carabineros of Chile. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research is titled ‘Police Innovation in Chile: A study of the Crime Prevention Quadrant Plan implemented by the Carabineros of Chile’. Its main objective was to carry out an empirical study focused on the implementation of this police strategy designed by the Carabineros in an attempt to reduce crime and insecurity in Chile. The study consists of two major areas of enquiry. The objective of the first area was to provide a comprehensive description of the Quadrant Plan, exploring the reasons behind its design, implementation, and nationwide deployment, and examining the attitudes of frontline police officers towards its implementation and the challenges they face. Furthermore, this area aimed to determine whether the associations between organizational and individual-level variables could predict or explain Chilean police officers' attitudes towards the Quadrant Plan. The research findings revealed that the Quadrant Plan emerged from the interplay of three socio-political factors present in Chile at the close of the 1990s. Regarding its impact, the available evidence suggested that the Quadrant Plan had a somewhat limited effect on crime in the targeted areas. Additionally, the study found that most participating officers demonstrated a positive attitude of support and commitment towards the Quadrant Plan. This positive attitude among officers could be attributed to a combination of factors including job satisfaction, leadership, and scepticism. The second area of enquiry focused on assessing the effectiveness of police stations, as measured by their ability to clear violent and property crimes across 10 police jurisdictions in the western region of Greater Santiago. This area also examined the supply of police services and the integration of crime analysis into the Carabineros' operations. Additionally, it explored the perceptions of 36 crime analysts regarding the impact of crime analysis on crime reduction and whether the Quadrant Plan has enhanced police accountability to the community. The findings indicated that police station effectiveness is only partly influenced by changes in police staffing within the evaluated police stations. However, the results highlighted that the inclusion of crime analysts in police work and the implementation of crime analysis meetings are significant factors that predict or explain the effectiveness of police stations in clearing violent and property crime within their designated quadrants. Additionally, the results obtained in the second area of enquiry indicated that the clearance rates for the crimes studied experienced a significant decrease post implementation of the second version of the Quadrant Plan. The two areas of investigation are interconnected, aiming to systematically assess the implementation of the Quadrant Plan in Chile over the past two decades. The first research area focuses on describing and evaluating the Quadrant Plan's implementation during a period when the Carabineros criminal analysis systems were not yet officially in place. The second research area examines and discusses the outcomes achieved by police stations following the introduction of the second version of the Quadrant Plan, during which all stations were implemented with criminal analysis systems to enhance their performance. In summary, this study also seeks to address the knowledge gap due to limited research on the innovation-driven organizational change within the Carabineros of Chile through the Quadrant Plan.

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