Senator Flores: drug culture and organised crime exploit state gaps in Chile
Senator Iván Flores warned that organised crime takes advantage of corruption and impunity to capture neighbourhoods and recruit young people without opportunities.
Organised crime fills the voids left by the state, warns Chilean senator
Senator for the Los Ríos region, Iván Flores García, warned that "organised crime relies on the weaknesses of the state, corruption and impunity", according to diariojuridico.com. The parliamentarian addressed the advance of drug trafficking in Chile, the impact of drug culture on young people and the absence of early prevention policies.
On the international level, Flores warned that the world is arriving late to understanding the magnitude of the phenomenon. "The concern is that as a world we are arriving late to what business holdings mean, if these are not small groups of people who decide to make money the easiest way, particularly through drugs," he stated.
Drug culture: glorification of crime as a model of success
Drug culture encompasses symbols, values and behaviours that idealise the criminal as a figure of power and bravery, normalising violence and easy money as forms of social validation. It is expressed in musical genres such as narcocorridos, in the display of brand-name clothing, high-end vehicles and luxurious architecture, and also in religious devotions such as the cult of Jesús Malverde or Santa Muerte.
Flores noted that these criminal organisations end up "capturing democracy" and "replacing the state" in the poorest neighbourhoods, where police do not enter. In Chile's case, he described this as a latent threat: "If we do not have a system that allows us to detect early, impunity begins to appear."
Humble neighbourhoods and young people, the most exposed
The senator stressed that drug trafficking has advanced "without opposition", capturing the most vulnerable sectors and recruiting disillusioned young people who have dropped out of school and who are offered easy money. "It has been capturing soldiers who are disillusioned young people, without opportunities, who have abandoned school," Flores stated.
The cartels also consolidate a base of social support by providing money or protection to communities, occupying the spaces that state institutions fail to cover.
Criticism of the lack of early prevention
Flores was direct in criticising the absence of a prevention policy: "When you abandon early prevention, what you are doing is delivering children to be easy prey to the offer made by the drug trafficker." The senator noted that this issue was absent from the latest presidential message and that there is no clear policy on it.
The parliamentarian, who has presided over ParlAmericas and been a member of the Senate since 2022, finally called on citizens to be "less belligerent" and "more committed to the same challenges, because we have the same problems," for the benefit of "our national community."
Source: Google News CL — Crime