In 2025 alone, more than 1,000 police officers were expelled from the PNP for having committed very serious offenses.

The figure, 1,193 troops expelled for the aforementioned reason, represents 23% of the total number of retirements registered last year, according to information that the PNP sent to The Commerce in response to a public information request.

In other words, one in five police officers will be discharged in 2025 due to very serious infractionswhich are classified with the code MG in Law 30714.

In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, agents who retired for very serious offenses represented 17.9% of the total. In 2023 the highest figure was recorded: 24.9% of casualties.

For César Bazán Seminario, an expert in citizen security and professor at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, the situation in the PNP is even more serious than what official statistics show.

“In the institution there are many people who commit infractions, even more than we see. Successful sanctions occur after complex processes, full of bureaucracy and in some cases esprit de corps is applied (to avoid expulsion),” he highlighted in dialogue with this newspaper.

“Absence from your unit for more than 5 calendar days consecutively, without justified cause” (MG 39) is the most recurrent very serious infraction in the National Police: 37.3% of the troops who retired for disciplinary infractions committed this offense.

For Carlos Tuse, former director of the PNP Disciplinary System, this reflects a critical problem. In his opinion, there is extreme exhaustion and work stress in the institution.

“Is it really about indiscipline or emotional, stress or psychological crises? Furthermore, the subordinates (officers and non-commissioned officers of lower grades) are the ones who have the greatest pressure. Burnout is a problem that no one is seeing in the police,” said the retired general.

In this regard, Bazán highlights that in many cases the agents “work in terrible conditions” and that they could even be considered “a group in a vulnerable situation.” “These police officers are tired, angry and they see (missing work without justification) a not so problematic way to leave (the PNP),” he added.

However, Among the 10 most frequent absences there are some that cannot be justified by stress or excessive workload.

For example, in 2025 alone, 150 personnel (12.6%) were expelled for “requesting or receiving gifts or any other kind” (MG 76), while 56 (4.7%) left the institution for “acting or participating directly or indirectly in abuse of the exercise of their functions, attacking personal freedom or public or private property” (MG 85).

Of the 1,193 police officers expelled for very serious infractions last year, more than half (56.1%) were third-rate non-commissioned officers, the lowest rank in the PNP. These troops are precisely those who have the most direct contact with citizens.

“There is a punitive asymmetry, since the sanctions are only applied to the large base of subordinates. The systematic corruption of high command or white collar crimes is not reflected. (…) Their superiors should also be sanctioned for lack of supervision and control,” questions Carlos Tuse.

César Bazán affirms that the large number of sanctions in the lowest grades reflects power relations. “If a higher-ranking officer or non-commissioned officer commits an act of corruption and asks a third-class non-commissioned officer to participate, the superior has many more tools to get rid of the disciplinary processes. It is easier to turn a third-class non-commissioned officer into a scapegoat,” explained the UARM professor.

At the other end of the ladder, the only general – the highest rank in the institution – who retired for disciplinary offenses in the same period was sanctioned for driving a motor vehicle with alcohol in his blood (MG 94).

The Commerce He requested an interview with the National Police through the Directorate of Communication and Institutional Image, but the response was negative.

However, in March 2024, the then inspector general of the institution, Jhonny Veliz, recognized that “the filters (to enter the PNP) are suddenly not the most adequate, the most appropriate” and that this explains the increase in expulsions for very serious offenses.

For Carlos Tuse, the problem goes much further. “Training schools do not adequately prepare future police officers. Likewise, accelerated training processes are being used: new officers leave in less time and do not know how to act in certain situations,” he stated.

Finally, Confidence in the work of the National Police has reached its lowest figure since 2019according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI).

The study “Peru: citizen perception of governability, democracy and trust in institutions”, published last May, reveals that trust in the PNP is 13.2%, 3.5 percentage points less than in 2025.

The work also shows that crime (53.6%) and lack of security (22.1%) are two of the country’s main problems, only surpassed by corruption (59.6%).

This newspaper tried to contact Popular Forcethe party that will govern in the next five years, to find out how it will face the critical situation of the police, but there was no response until the closing of this report.

But in its government plan, “Peru with order”, the party of Keiko Fujimori proposes the “strengthening of high-quality macro-regional police schools,” as well as the “expansion and strengthening of the police recruitment process to identify, train and select young people with a vocation for service, discipline and integrity, ensuring the entry of future police officers with ethical values ​​and citizen commitment.”