Chile's Municipal Security Law takes full effect — and mayors are already asking for it to be amended

Chile's new Ley de Seguridad Municipal came fully into force in August, substantially expanding what municipalities may do on crime prevention in a country where policing has been strongly centralised. The mayors' associations who lobbied for the law are simultaneously pressing for amendments, having got the powers without the resources or clarity to use them.

England has spent fifteen years half-devolving policing through PCCs and metro mayors without settling what a local security function actually is. Chile is running the experiment properly — and the sequencing failure (powers granted before funding and clarity) is the exact pattern of English devolution deals.