Project description:

In the last 17 years, companies in the extractive sector that have been involved in socio-environmental conflicts in Peru have signed security/protection agreements with the National Police for more than US $18,490,566.

Are these contracts legal? Police agreements with private companies are legal as an organic law states that the institution can provide “rented services of a particular nature.” Yet a recent ruling recognizes that these contracts can be perceived as a loss of objectivity”, and indicates that the Police should only provide security to companies that demonstrate that they cannot obtain that service from private security companies.

Impact reached:

The Minister of Interior, Avelino Guillén, acknowledged the findings of this investigation and said that he would evaluate the information with his advisory cabinet.

This is the first time a journalistic investigation in Peru has looked into the relationship between large mining and oil companies and the Peruvian Police. The findings of this report have shown that the Peruvian Police might have a biased behavior during social conflicts in mining regions, instead of providing protection to local communities.

Techniques/technologies used:

The Minister of Interior, Avelino Guillén, acknowledged the findings of this investigation and said that he would evaluate the information with his advisory cabinet.

This is the first time a journalistic investigation in Peru has looked into the relationship between large mining and oil companies and the Peruvian Police. The findings of this report have shown that the Peruvian Police might have a biased behavior during social conflicts in mining regions, instead of providing protection to local communities.

What was the hardest part of this project?

Building the database was the hardest part of this project because of the different types of contracts and the non-native PDF scanned files of the information given to us. The differences found were of all kinds, from the description of the contract, the commitments of the signing parties, the amounts and payment periods, among others that resulted in a 75-column data table.

This is an original investigation as it’s the first time that journalism in Peru is addressing a sensitive topic—an analysis of the contracts signed between the National Police and oil and mining companies for the protection of the later—that could show that the security forces of the Peruvian state protect large companies’ operation sites, which it’s detrimental for local communities that protest against bad business practices and environmental pollution.

The investigation acquired greater relevance thanks to the crossing of the data obtained from the registry of social conflicts from the Ombudsman’s Office, which allowed us to identify that during the socio-environmental conflicts, the Peruvian Police signed private security contracts with companies that were protagonists of these conflicts that even resulted in the deaths of protesters from the impact of firearm projectiles.

What can others learn from this project?

Journalists from Latin American countries and from other continents–in which their economies depend heavily on investment from extractive industries and where there are levels of complaints about environmental contamination due to these activities– can have in this report an important example on how to verify if their public security forces are actually at the service of these big companies.

In the case of facing technical difficulties, such as documents in non-native formats or the non-existence of databases, obtaining data through OCR programs and automated reading through the search for keywords, are tools that allow to reduce the time when building databases from scratch.

Crossing information provided by the Ministry of the Interior and the Ombudsman’s Office was fundamental for purposes of this investigation.

Project links:

convoca.pe/investigacion/mineras-y-petroleras-pagaron-mas-de-us-18-millones-la-policia-por-seguridad-privada