[andrewcooke]

ok, i think i have finally found what you're talking about - in 94 frei's govt created the Comisión Nacional de Ética Pública

but this was related to the transition from the junta to civillian rule (and of course the junta was corrupt). that is really old news.

so sorry, i misunderstood your original reply. yes, that's a/the historical explanation. but if you ask someone in the street why you don't bribe police it's because it's a simple fact of normal behaviour these days. the kind of corruption that occurred during the junta is seen as exceptional to those times.

there have been several scandals more recently, but they're generally related to politicians more than police (and probably helped pinera get elected in the hope that a new broom would sweep cleaner).

[edit: sorry, have been editing significantly; thanks for updated link]

[jacquesm]

Sorry about the broken link, I really hate it when google does not allow you to cut-and-paste links to documents, especially pdfs.

http://csis.org/files/media/csis/events/070710_Penailillo.pd...

Here is a re-try. The document linked is quite frank about achievements and areas that still need (a lot of) work.

Yes, the Junta was corrupt, but the government that replaced it had its issues too, and they worked quite hard on fixing those.

The kind of corruption that is not tolerated in Chile is par for the course in pretty much all the surrounding countries.

I'm not sure if pre-transition Chilean materials are representative of reality.