All credit here goes to the Chile-based Latinobarómetro polling organization, which carries out an annual public-opinion survey in most of Latin America and the Caribbean. The 2018 poll (PDF) is a fascinating read.

For an upcoming presentation, I wanted to know what the poll said about how Latin Americans are viewing the three government institutions that have the most to do with defense and security: the military, the police, and the justice system. When citizens are asked whether they trust these institutions, the poll shows a huge variation across countries.

Also interesting is the gap, in percentage points, between trust in the armed forces and trust in the police.

Perhaps it makes sense that the police, which are in more regular contact with the population, would be consistently lower. But this is a big problem, because it feeds calls to send the military into the streets to perform crimefighting roles that should be up to civilians.