Dominican Police Reform Is Failing as Police Killings Rise, Opposition Says

Dominican Republic · Security

The Dominican police reform, President Luis Abinader’s five-year effort to rebuild the National Police, is heading for failure, the opposition says. The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), which governed until 2020, made the charge at a press conference on Monday 28 September.

The party pointed to persistent robbery and extortion and to a sharp rise in people killed by officers. Hours later Abinader devoted his weekly press conference to security, defending falling murder rates and a harder line on fugitives.

Patrol pickups of the Dominican Republic’s National Police in March 2019, two years before the current reform began. Thony clase via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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What the opposition says

José Dantés, the PLD’s secretary for legal affairs, read the party’s statement at its headquarters in Santo Domingo. He said billions of pesos spent since 2021 had not prevented 887 recorded motorcycle thefts between April and June, Listín Diario reported.

The party insists it backs officers who use lawful force against armed criminals. “Precisely because we firmly defend the police, every death during a police action must be clarified,” Dantés said.

Sigfrido Pared Pérez, defence minister under former president Danilo Medina, framed the dispute more broadly. “Firmness against crime and respect for the law are not contradictory positions,” he said, according to Listín Diario.

The statement recalled the 21 September robbery in which the wife of merengue singer Julián Oro Duro was killed at home. The party said every family has the right to feel safe inside its own home, Hoy reported.

The PLD asked for a monthly public register of all homicides, including deaths in police operations. It also wants prosecutors to lead every such investigation, more body cameras and a report to Congress on staffing, spending and results.

How the murder figures are counted

The government’s headline measure is the murder rate, the standard international yardstick of deaths per 100,000 residents. Police data put it at 7.34 by 18 September, down from 8.74 in the same period of 2025, Acento reported.

The PLD’s central point concerns what that rate leaves out. It cited figures from Cadseci, the Interior Ministry’s citizen-security data centre, showing 625 homicides of all kinds in January–June 2026.

Of those, 382 were intentional homicides, 144 were deaths by “legal intervention” and 99 fell into other categories. Legal intervention is the official category for deaths in police operations, usually reported as “exchanges of gunfire” with suspects.

That means nearly one in four homicides in the period came at the hands of officers. Put another way, for every 100 murders, police killed about 38 people, according to the data the PLD cited.

On the same figures, as Hoy reported the statement, intentional homicides fell from 478 in the first half of 2025 to 382. Police killings rose 14.3 percent over the same period, and those two opposite trends are the heart of the argument.

A surge in September

September sharpened the dispute, with Diario Libre counting at least 37 deaths in police operations between 6 and 27 September. The count and the reaction to it are set out in Dominican Republic: Police Killed at Least 37 People in September.

Other tallies differ, which is the PLD’s complaint in itself. The National Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental group, counted 31 deaths by 25 September and 200 this year, the PLD said.

Hoy reported that the statement cited press records of 42 such deaths this month, against 14 in all of September 2025. Acento and Diario Libre gave the statement’s September figure as more than 30, and the party asked: “What is the official figure?”

Major General Ernesto Rafael Rodríguez García became police chief in August, the fifth in Abinader’s six years, El Nuevo Diario noted. On Sunday 27 September he said officers who break the rules will be punished, Acento reported.

What the government says the reform has delivered

Luis Ernesto García Hernández, the executive commissioner for the reform, presented a progress report this month, Acento reported. He said 11,001 recruits had joined the force and training had grown from three months to a year.

The report also listed 100 new local police posts and a new tactical training system for officers. On 28 September officials said 10,000 body cameras were now available to officers, N Digital and Z101 Digital reported.

Interior Minister Faride Raful said patrol officers now make up 31 percent of the force, up from 12 percent. She added that stations are under orders to accept every citizen’s complaint, and a digital platform now tracks reports.

Mu-Kien Sang Ben, the historian who coordinates the police’s education reform, counts 12,272 graduates between July 2021 and April 2026. She told Diario Libre that dropout among new recruits is low because selection is strict.

Disputes over the headcount and the cost

Fuerza del Pueblo, the party of former president Leonel Fernández, called the reform “another failure” of the ruling party on 14 September. Its security secretary, Josefina Reynoso, said the force grew from 36,094 members in 2020 to 38,603 in 2026.

That is a net gain of 2,509, set against a promise of about 20,000 new officers, Diario Libre reported. “Training is not retaining, and announcing is not delivering,” Reynoso said.

Sang Ben replied that the net figure hides retirements and dismissals of older officers, and 2,396 recruits still in supervised practice. About 3,000 more will graduate in November, with 20,000 graduates targeted before the end of 2028, Acento reported.

Published estimates of the reform’s cost come from opinion columns, not from an official account. Marien Aristy Capitán, Hoy’s managing editor, put spending at no less than RD$12.5 billion (US$210 million) on 24 September.

A 20 September column in El Nuevo Diario valued the whole programme at RD$52 billion (US$874 million) through 2028. Both conversions use 59.48 pesos to the dollar on 29 September, and neither figure could be independently confirmed.

Rights groups want every death investigated

Manuel María Mercedes, the commission’s president, goes further than either party. He told El Nuevo Diario that more than 1,200 people had been “executed” by the authorities during Abinader’s six years.

He also said more than 75 percent of September’s 37 deaths were executions, based on the group’s own files. These are the commission’s estimates, not an official record, and they could not be independently confirmed.

Carlos Balcácer, a lawyer, argued in remarks reported by Acento that the label “exchange of gunfire” cannot replace an investigation. Even a case of self-defence, he said, must first go to investigators and then to a court.

The president’s answer

Abinader acknowledged on Monday that public security “is a concern that continues.” He recalled that when he entered politics in 2008, polls already ranked it the public’s first worry, Diario Libre reported.

He said about 80 percent of people who commit murder already face several arrest warrants. “Either they turn themselves in or they are tracked down,” he said, adding that the order is to track them down.

He added that the new criminal code toughens sentences and lets penalties for several crimes be added together. Officials also said 20 new police units start work on Friday 2 October, first in La Altagracia, the province of Punta Cana.

What comes next

The PLD wants the government to take a balance sheet of the Dominican police reform to Congress. The rights commission has announced a national day of mobilisation and proposed a public debate with police and prosecutors.

The dispute does not mean the reform has stopped, or that murders are rising again. On the police’s own figures they are falling, and the argument is about police killings and how they are counted.

The PLD is itself divided, as seen in Dominican Republic’s Former Ruling Party Feuds Over Its 2028 Candidate. Abinader cannot run again in 2028, so whoever wins will inherit the reform and the argument over it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “exchange of gunfire” mean in Dominican police reports?

It is the phrase police use when suspects die in an armed confrontation with officers. Rights groups say many of these deaths are executions, which is why they want each one investigated by prosecutors.

Who is the PLD?

The Dominican Liberation Party governed for 20 of the 24 years before 2020, under Leonel Fernández and Danilo Medina. It lost power to Abinader’s Modern Revolutionary Party in 2020, and Fernández now leads the rival Fuerza del Pueblo.

Is the Dominican police reform making the country safer?

On murders, the police data point that way, with the rate down to 7.34 per 100,000 people by 18 September. On police killings the trend runs the other way, and that is what the opposition and rights groups dispute.

Will the September deaths be investigated?

That is not yet known. The PLD and the rights commission want prosecutors to lead each inquiry, and the police chief has promised sanctions for officers who break the rules.

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error