Chilean President José Antonio Kast on Aug. 5 announced an agenda of roughly 30 bills targeting organized crime and terrorism. The proposals would expand police powers, toughen penalties for criminal organizations, strengthen border controls and create new constitutional provisions on public security. How much of a departure is Kast’s security agenda from the policies pursued by previous Chilean governments, including those of Gabriel Boric, and how significant would the proposed changes be in practice? How likely is the government to get its security package through Congress? How effective would the measures be, and how is the public responding to the proposals?
Catalina Droppelmann, professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and director of the university’s Center for Justice and Society Studies: “President Kast’s security agenda, known as ACOT (Agenda Against Organized Crime and Terrorism), is not, in technical terms, an advance in public security policy but rather an agenda of militarization of public security. The previous government under Gabriel Boric made substantive institutional changes, including the creation of a new Ministry of Public Security in 2025, oriented toward strengthening civilian institutional capacity. ACOT instead pursues a different logic: a set of constitutional amendments that would incorporate the armed forces into functions traditionally reserved for civilian police, while placing core security provisions beyond the ordinary reach of the Constitutional Court. Among its provisions are a new state of exception triggered by organized crime and expanded powers allowing the military to support police in surveillance, perimeter control and logistics. Legislative approval remains uncertain. The constitutional reform requires a reinforced majority that the governing coalition does not hold on its own. Resistance is not coming solely from the opposition, as lawmakers aligned with the government have requested modifications, without ruling out their support. The ordinary-law initiatives face lower thresholds and have a greater likelihood of passing before the end of the year. Popular support notwithstanding, the package’s real effectiveness is doubtful. Prioritizing police and military control without a parallel prevention strategy tends to produce limited results. There is also a risk that territorial interventions will stigmatize specific communities and neighborhoods, eroding the social fabric rather than strengthening it. Expanding the powers of security forces that lack the training or protocols needed to operate under a prolonged state of exception increases the likelihood of abuses. Finally, ACOT prioritizes tougher criminal penalties over the structural causes of the phenomenon (such as inequality, institutional fragmentation and illegal markets) and early prevention, which undermines its long-term sustainability and effectiveness.”
Lucía Dammert, professor of international relations at the University of Santiago in Chile: “Kast’s Agenda Against Organized Crime and Terrorism (ACOT) delivers, almost item by item, the platform on which he won: pursue, capture, prosecute and punish. Yet substantively, it represents less a rupture with Chile’s recent security policy than an escalation of an already established punitive cycle. Harsher sentences, expanded police powers, tighter migration controls and tougher prison regimes largely extend measures advanced under Gabriel Boric, often with cross-party support. Kast also relies on institutional architecture inherited from his predecessor, particularly the Ministry of Public Security. The more consequential innovation is a proposed territorially targeted state of constitutional exception, allowing restrictions on movement, assembly and association, as well as communications interception in areas facing serious security threats. The package is reinforced by political staging. Operación Cancerbero, which transferred nearly 300 high-risk inmates to a new high security jail, was accompanied by extensive official footage that immediately prompted comparisons with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s security communications. This puts the opposition in a difficult position: Many underlying measures are hard to reject, shifting debate toward exceptional powers, constitutional safeguards and spectacle. But legislation is the easier half. Kast’s real test is implementation: whether tougher laws produce sustained reductions in violence and organized crime. That requires less visible capabilities—criminal investigation, financial intelligence, prison management, effective prosecution and territorial state presence. Public anxiety gives the government strong incentives to emphasize visible coercion: 82.9 percent of Chileans believed crime had increased nationally in 2025. But if institutional capacities do not improve, ACOT may prove effective at responding to fear while doing far less to weaken the criminal economies that sustain violence.”
Patricio Navia, clinical professor of liberal studies at New York University and professor of political science at Diego Portales University in Chile: “President José Antonio Kast had an unquestionably popular anti-crime agenda. Yet, the anti-crime set of reforms he sent to Congress might have gone overboard. Chileans elected Kast precisely because he promised adopting tough anti-crime policies. There is a clear majority in the legislature that will support punitive reforms and other reforms that strengthen the national police and increase funding for anti-crime policies. But Kast’s reforms also include a few proposals for constitutional reforms that can potentially lead to concentration of power in the hands of the presidency and punitive policies that could potentially result in the violations of the rights of criminals. Since even criminals are entitled to human rights and equal treatment under the law, those proposals have given ammunition to the left-wing opposition’s claims that Kast espouses illiberal views and authoritarian traits. Even right-wing legislators have announced that they will oppose some of the more radical mano dura reforms. The minister of health, a Kast appointee, also expressed reservations about some proposals that could restrict access to health services to criminals convicted of heinous crimes. Chileans want the government to adopt tough anti-crime policies. But Chileans don’t want a government that exercises discretionary power nor do they want policies that violate human rights. If he manages to backtrack on some of the more controversial anti-crime policies, Kast will successfully seize control of the agenda and implement effective anti-crime policies, and the leftwing opposition will be forced to choose between becoming irrelevant or embracing positions seen as too soft on criminals. But if Kast pushes forward with the more controversial items on his anti-crime agenda, the opposition will successfully corner him as a radical right ideologue and undermine his image of a common-sense down-to-earth conservative president who is pushing for tough but necessary anti-crime policies.”
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