Over 100 community organizations met at the Santa Ana Polytechnical Institute in the barrio of Gualey, Santo Domingo for the First Barrio Forum Against Violence. The different groups described how crime is organized and how the rate of violence has doubled in the past few months. The coordinator of the prosecutor’s office in the section of Los Guandules, Carlos Manuel Hernandez told reporters that police presence in the area was minimal, leaving doors open to crime. The forum discussed a plan for citizen safety that will be presented to the government in April.
According to another speaker, a retired teacher with more than 52 years service, told the audience that the Dominican exodus is partly to blame for the violence. According to her testimony, she never imagined that her barrio, Luperon, would become so materialistic and that when parents received visas to travel they would “take off and abandon their children.” According to the teacher, Luz Maria Sierra, “during the Trujillo dictatorship, mothers would offer their daughters to the dictator. Now they are offering their children to the ‘Dominicanyorks’ of Luperon barrio.” Carlos Manuel Hernandez said that there were only eight policemen for an area of 48,000 people. Complaints to the prosecutor’s office have increased dramatically: From 22 in September to 167 in January. He said that international norms establish the need to have 300 police for every 100,000 people. The area would need at least 150 agents.