El Ciudadano
By The Investigation Team at El Ciudadano
When Chile’s new Ministry of Public Security opened its doors on April 1, 2025, in rented offices at Teatinos 220, just steps from La Moneda, it represented more than just an administrative move. It was the culmination of 18 years of legislative debate—a tangible promise that Chile would shift from a reactive approach to public security to the construction of a strategic state policy with real coordination and civilian oversight of the police.
However, a year later, that promise appears to be deteriorating, not due to time or the complexity of the issues at hand, but rather due to a new administration that seized power waved the banner of security without continuing the established institutional framework, opting instead to dismantle it. What they could not achieve in Congress they are now enforcing de facto.
The Architecture That Existed
Law 21.730 was not just another legislative process. Those involved in its design and the initial establishment of the ministry recall that the legal text enshrined three doctrinal pillars intended to transform the Chilean security model.
The first pillar was the National Security and Prevention System: an integrated governance model capable of involving ministries, police forces, regional governments, municipalities, and specialized agencies under a unified approach.
Rather than generating more bureaucracy, this aimed to resolve the historical deficit of institutions that operated in silos, competing against one another and rarely sharing relevant information. Agencies like the OECD, the IDB, and the United Nations have long emphasized that such coordination is the most critical factor for the success of modern security policies, and finally, Chile had incorporated it into its legislation.
The second pillar was the Integrated Crime Information System: an interoperability platform designed to connect Carabineros, PDI, Gendarmería, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the IRS, Customs, the National Migration Service, the Civil Registry, the Legal Medical Service, and other institutions involved in the crime cycle.
Technically, it was likely the most significant reform in decades for evidence-based management. Until then, each institution maintained its own data, with incompatible systems and often corporate secrecy. The new system aimed to break this paradigm: cross-reference real-time information, detect territorial patterns of organized crime, monitor cases, and identify links between individuals, organizations, and financial institutions.
The third pillar involved strengthening civilian command over the police: a permanent and strategic leadership that would cease to depend on the institutional whims of each government or the goodwill of police leadership.
Sources involved in the initial design and implementation of the ministry agree that significant progress was made in the first months. Not enough, nor consolidated, but real. There was a roadmap, there were teams, and there was purpose.
Cordero: Building Under Maximum Pressure
Luis Cordero took office as the first Minister of Security in March 2025 under less-than-ideal conditions. The Monsalve case had severely damaged the government’s credibility regarding security, and the new department was born under the political weight of the worst possible circumstance.
Yet Cordero possessed something his successors did not: clarity about what needed to be built. President Boric himself characterized this goal when he appointed him: «The objective of this first phase is to establish public security as a permanent state policy, not simply to be absorbed by the contingencies.»
This is precisely what Cordero attempted to achieve. In 11 months, he accomplished the administrative and regulatory implementation of the ministry, coordinated technical teams in the Strategic Unit under the leadership of Fabián Gil (former director of studies at Fundación Paz Ciudadana), advanced the development of the Integrated Crime Information System, and pushed for the elaboration of the National Public Security Policy, which was approved in July 2025 by the National Councils of Public Security and Crime Prevention, under the mandate of the law.
By the end of Boric’s government, many definitions remained more projected than finalized. Cordero was aware of this. Nevertheless, there was an architecture under construction, a roadmap, and technical teams committed to a goal.
Once the presidential election was defined and with communication channels cut off for the transfer process, there were few possibilities to adequately convey the complexity of the tasks being undertaken. However, Cordero managed to engage with the new authorities, urging them to continue essential tasks for fulfilling Law 21.730.
Thus, the new administration’s commitment to Cordero was to maintain the Strategic Unit to ensure the continuity of the National Security System and continue progressing through the subsequent stages of the Integrated Crime Information System.
However, shortly after, primarily due to pressure from Minister Steiner, the complete dismissal of the strategic unit’s entire team was ordered, leading its head, Fabián Gil, to resign.
This scenario reflected a clear disaffection with the legal mandate of Law 21.730 and the state perspective that the law entails.
Former Minister Cordero assessed the first month of Kast’s government straightforwardly: «This administration took power with a well-structured and organized security plan. One would expect, given the government’s emergency rhetoric, that the installation phase would be less improvisational than what currently exists.”
Then he became more specific: «The absence of a plan. What are the government’s objectives for mid-year regarding the central indicators related to security issues?»
The Dismantling
The first action taken by Minister Trinidad Steinert was to dissolve the Strategic Unit. The team led by Fabián Gil (a small but specialized group composed of computer engineers and data analysts) was dismantled. The Minister’s office argued that its functions «were already performed by other divisions.» However, for those familiar with the sector, this justification does not hold up to scrutiny.
The Strategic Unit was not redundant: it was the only part of the ministry capable of long-term planning and integrated data management.
What occurred afterward, according to accounts from officials and former technical team members, resembled more of a political operation aimed at dismantling established capabilities than a proper administrative restructuring.
The process began with the de facto dissolution of the internal structure of the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention—an agency that serves as the strategic and operational support for the Ministry of Public Security—without any replacement architecture or formal redefinition of roles. The resolution signed by the undersecretary practically nullified the existing internal function manual.
Two weeks later, a new resolution modified the institutional organizational chart. Yet, it also failed to establish specific roles, powers, or responsibilities for the new dependencies. Sources within the ministry describe it as «an empty organizational chart.» The substantial difference was that the Department of Strategic Management simply disappeared from the structure.
This signal did not go unnoticed within the ministry. According to professionals involved in establishing the new institution, this unit was significant. According to the Regulations of the National Security System (which remains in effect), the Department of Strategic Management played a central role as support for the Technical Secretary of the National System and as a facilitator for critical projects for the implementation of Law 21.730, including the Integrated Crime Information System.
Its elimination had immediate effects, including the dismissal of the engineer leading the development of the Integrated Crime Information System, one of the most sensitive technological projects of the new institution (no performance evaluations or formal processes preceded this decision). The exit was abrupt and without verifiable technical justification. This expertise is not easily replaced and, indeed, was not.
Subsequent actions involved pressing for the removal of the head of the department, a recognized career official seen as crucial in the installation of the ministry. Various sources compare these events to the earlier departure of Fabián Gil: a sign of the gradual dismantling of the technical expertise that had supported the original strategic design.
The doubts around the nature of this measure are reinforced by the fact that the so-called «restructuring» did not significantly alter other areas of the undersecretariat. For several consulted officials, the administrative redesign seemed to focus exclusively on dismantling teams linked to strategic planning, interoperability, and systemic coordination, which were the very pillars that the law defined as priorities for the new Ministry of Public Security.
The questions circulating among former technical team members involve whether there was a deliberate decision behind these dismissals. Sources linked to the process suggest that the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention may have operated under an explicit political mandate: to displace all preceding personnel tied to strategic implementation tasks, regardless of their technical suitability or outcomes.
If this interpretation is accurate, it would not be an administrative restructuring, but rather a political purge with institutional consequences that the ministry will take years to recover from.
The contrast with Cordero’s management is vivid. The first Minister of Security came in with a team of no more than 15 people, including direct advisors, the Strategic Unit, and his immediate cabinet. This austerity was not a sign of precariousness: it was a deliberate choice for technical quality over political volume.
In contrast, Steinert leads a ministerial team that, according to internal sources, exceeds 30 members and has been requesting additional positions from the undersecretariats to strengthen her central trusted circle. A significant proportion of this group includes former military officers—often ex-colonels from the Army—without proven experience in public management or civil security policies.
The practical consequences of this composition are severe. According to sources familiar with the internal operation of the ministry, much of this team lacks the minimum competencies to understand ongoing institutional processes, which makes it materially impossible to maintain fluid technical dialogue with institutions in the security system: Carabineros, PDI, the Prosecutor’s Office, Gendarmería, or specialized services.
Faced with this scenario, the administration has had to resort to temporary appointments and replacements to maintain some of the ministerial leadership structure. According to internal sources, several officials appointed as trusted leaders do not yet meet the minimum requirements established by regulations to formally hold those positions, particularly regarding professional experience, years of study, or technical specialization.
This has compelled career officials and technical teams from the undersecretariats to assume interim leadership roles while authorities attempt to regularize appointments. For sector professionals, this situation reflects not only administrative improvisation but also the challenges of reconciling political appointment criteria with the technical demands of a complex institutional framework like the new Ministry of Public Security.
This is not a minor administrative issue. Law 21.730 explicitly established that civilian oversight over the police should be exercised with real technical capacity, not merely formal authority. What is happening today at Teatinos 220 is almost the opposite: formal authority devoid of technical backing, which practically equates to having no civilian control whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the Integrated Crime Information System has been put on hold. No one clearly assumed the role of the dismissed engineer. The project was neither transferred nor formally documented for continuity, nor assigned to another unit with equivalent capability. It has simply been paralyzed. What can take years to build in technical terms (not just the systems, but the institutional trust necessary for them to function) can be undone in weeks through an administrative decision and a personnel purge. That is precisely what has occurred.
It’s worth recalling the legislative context behind this demolition. During the parliamentary discussion of Law 21.730, the Republicans were the only ones to systematically oppose the technical coordination mechanisms, the Strategic Unit, and the institutional architecture that is now being dismantled. What they could not halt in Congress, they are executing from the Executive branch.
Regarding the budget, the government initially announced a cut of $72.669 million for the Ministry of Security, applying the same general 3% adjustment as for other portfolios. The contradiction was evident: the same government that arrived promising a «security emergency» was treating its most emblematic ministry budgetarily as if it were just another.
Although this cut was ultimately not implemented (in part due to political pressure), the episode revealed something more concerning than the amount: the absence of any real prioritization of the security agenda beyond rhetoric. A cut can be withdrawn. The political signal it sends, however, cannot be easily taken back.
Kast’s Plan: Fireworks Without Direction
Instead of the institutional architecture it found, Kast’s government opted for a policy of short-lived media hits. Massive operations with thousands of arrests. The «Shield Plan on Route» between Arica and Antofagasta. Identity checks on the streets. Weekly homicide figures published on transparency portals. All designed for headlines, with little thought given to addressing the underlying problem.
The «Unyielding Plan» presented by Kast during his campaign already showcased the issues with this vision. His proposals focused on harsher penalties, military presence at borders, special prisons, and the militarization of internal security.
Analysis by CIPER published in April 2025 revealed that among the 37 security proposals from candidate Kast, most targeted immigration and the prison system, while state coordination and information and intelligence received marginal attention. What Law 21.730 placed at the center, Kast relegated to the periphery.
More critically, the proposed governmental security plan has no relationship with the National Public Security Policy approved in July 2025, following the mechanisms established in the very law. That policy was developed with input from the National Councils of Public Security and Crime Prevention, adhering to the institutional process that the law establishes. This is the current instrument. The government ignores it.
The results are evident. Nearly two months into the administration, academic Cristián Riego from Diego Portales University remarked, «The signals from the ministry seem to reflect only improvisation. I don’t think there’s a communication issue. It’s a fundamental matter. The government’s actions concerning security bewilder the public and make it very difficult to be optimistic.»
Criticism soon emerged from within the ruling party itself. Senator Rodolfo Carter, whose circle had pressured for him to take over the ministry, labeled the minister’s absence from the Finance Commission as «unacceptable» and warned that «Minister Steinert is running out of time.» Congressman Iván Flores spoke of a «legislative drought» and reported that no government project had reached the Senate’s Security Commission.
Steinert responded in various ways to these critiques, none entirely convincing. In an interview with La Tercera, she set a timeline of a year for the public to notice improvements. Then she mentioned «six months.» She promised to double the Carabineros force within four years and made a communication faux pas: «I have lacked communication skills.»
In none of these instances did she provide a clear explanation for the dissolution of the Strategic Unit, what would happen with the Integrated Crime Information System, or how the government plan aligns with the existing National Security Policy.
What is Lost When the Hard-Won Infrastructure is Dismantled
There’s a phrase often repeated by those who worked on establishing the ministry: «In public security, dismantling capabilities takes years. The complex part isn’t designing systems; it’s building the institutional trust so they function.»
This is what’s at stake. It’s not only the loss of key personnel or the discontinuity of technical projects. What is lost is something harder to replace: the inter-institutional trust that enables Carabineros to share data with the PDI, that allows the PDI to cross-reference that with the IRS, that enables the Prosecutor’s Office to access real-time criminal intelligence. That trust cannot be established with a decree nor can it be regained through a media operation.
The underlying political risk is that the failure of the institutional coordination and intelligence model strengthens precisely the narrative of those who argue that complex institutional solutions do not work. That what Chile needs is more uniforms on the streets, more military at the borders, more years in jail. That evidence and data are for academics, not for those in power.
This is the narrative that Kast built during his campaign and now, paradoxically, his own government is consolidating with its management failures: by dismantling the tools that would have shown that the state can be intelligent against crime, they are leaving the country without a defense against punitive measures.
Public security rarely collapses abruptly. It deteriorates gradually, when systems cease to coordinate, when information stops circulating, when politics replaces institutional building with crisis management.
This was exactly what Law 21.730 aimed to prevent. And this is precisely what is happening.
Steiner’s Appointment: «Very Inadequate»
For Esteban Tumba, president of the Federation of Officials of the Ministry of the Interior and Related Services (Fenaminsa), the government’s installation on security became complicated when they lacked a candidate for the ministerial seat, stating that Minister Steiner’s appointment «was a late choice and, evidently, very inadequate.»
«This is no light judgment; our federation closely followed and participated in the legislative process since the submission of substitute amendments made by the Boric administration to the project proposed by the former president Piñera. The course of the legislative debate led to a broadly generalized consensus from the left to the right, with the exception of Republicans and libertarians, who opposed the establishment of the new Ministry of Security, viewing it as merely more bureaucracy,» stated the leader.
This aspect is crucial for understanding the current moment, as the Republican sector, now in government, «did not participate in the consensus regarding the core elements of the project, which aimed to effectively address the disjointed behavior of the Chilean state bodies by proposing a governance structure and a data and information management infrastructure.»
«However, the Minister of Public Security and the Undersecretary for Crime Prevention come from that world, which opposed and stood outside of the consensus,» added Esteban Tumba.
«Starting from these facts, the measures of Undersecretary Quintana become understandable, such as the publication of useless (due to being incomplete and temporary) homicide information or her statements in media where she places the responsibility for public security on citizens while she is in charge of one of the central areas of policies and public management in security,» highlighted the Fenaminsa representative.
The leader warns that this also helps to understand «the dismantling that the minister and the undersecretary have been executing in the strategic areas of the new system, precisely those that can ensure institutional progress, favoring media visibility and operational matters, as if it still were prosecuting attorneys and, nonetheless, with implementation errors since they should have noted the substantial debate in parliamentary committees that resulted in leaving the Law of Internal Security of the State in the hands of the Ministry of the Interior and not under their jurisdiction.»
El Ciudadano
La entrada The Security Ministry Built by Chile and Dismantled by Kast: Examining the Shift from the Technical Promises of Law 21,730 to Directionless Operations and Superficial Media Strategies se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.
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