Charting Justice Reform in Chile: A Comparison of the Old and New Systems of Criminal Procedure

Abstract

For the past four years, Chile has been replacing its old system of criminal justice with a new one intended to be more fair and effective. Gradually and methodically, the government has introduced new laws, practices, and institutions in 12 of the republic’s 13 regions. Once the reforms reach the metropolitan region of Santiago in 2005, the transition will be complete. Until then, skilled and dedicated professionals in the remaining region continue to work in an old justice system that most Chileans believe is extremely sluggish, poor at prosecuting crime, and inhumane for both victims and offenders. There are clear and serious problems in the old system of justice: victims wait a long time to see a judge and obtain help from state agencies. Defendants spend considerable time in jail, isolated from their families and often ignorant of the status of the proceedings against them.The reforms respond to these and other problems. The new justice system is designed to be more agile and also more fair and humane. In place of an investigating judge, prosecutors should collaborate with police to investigate complaints quickly and thoroughly, resolve minor criminal offenses without placing defendants in custody, and take serious matters to judges who supervise the criminal proceedings and preside over open trials. Within the newly created Ministerio Público (Office of the Prosecutor) there are units created specifically to counsel and assist victims and witnesses who need special attention.In design, the new system represents a vast improvement over the old way of handling criminal cases. But little is known about its actual impact, about whether the administration of justice has improved since 2000. But what is the reality? How is the administration of justice different in practice?To answer those questions, the Division of Research of the Ministerio Público and the New York-based Vera Institute of Justice compared the way in which the old and new systems process cases—analyzing almost 7,000 cases begun in 2002, some in the old system, some in the new.