The participation of the national police in the system for the protection of victims and witnesses

Abstract

The intervention of victims, witnesses and other participants: judges, prosecutors, experts, investigators, in a criminal process, puts their lives and that of their families at risk, on many occasions. Therefore, from the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, priority procedures are established for the protection of vulnerable people and the defense of their rights, protected by the principles of accessibility, responsibility, complementarity, opportunity, effectiveness and efficiency. One of those protection mechanisms in dangerous situations is police protection; figure that has been incorporated into Ecuadorian regulations, in search of reducing the serious security crisis spread nationwide. Therefore, the objective of this investigation is to determine if the participation of police officers in the Victims and Witnesses Protection System is effective and fulfills its mission of safeguarding the integrity of those protected. To do this, a qualitative methodological approach is used and the scientific methods applied are the bibliographic review, the historical - logical and the analytical - synthetic. Everything that has made it possible to find the critical knots that weaken the actions of the System, such as the decrease in the budget, the lack of specialized human talent and that the laws that govern the protection processes do not allow safeguarding outside the limits of the Ecuadorian territory.