Police Misconduct and Political Legitimacy in Central America
Police performance is vital in consolidated democracies, but even more so in post-transition countries where public support for the regime is not yet firmly established. In many Latin American countries, as Mark Ungar and others have pointed out, law enforcement institutions had to be reformed not only to improve the capacity of the emerging democratic states but, more importantly, to prevent a return to the oppressive practices of the authoritarian past (Ungar 2011).