For the first time in its history, Colombia moved from reactive, fragmented responses to crime toward a coherent, state-level criminal policy. That shift was driven by Camilo Andrés Rojas Castro in his role as Vice Minister for Criminal Policy and Restorative Justice at the Ministry of Justice and Law.
In July 2021, under his leadership, the Superior Council of Criminal Policy approved the country’s first National Criminal Policy Plan (2021-2025). It was later formalized in CONPES 4089 with dedicated funding and a clear action plan. The document established seven strategic priorities: reducing homicide, preventing gender-based violence, disrupting organized crime, protecting adolescents and youth, humanizing the prison system, modernizing state action, and fighting state capture and corruption.
The plan was the product of more than one hundred working sessions involving the judiciary, Congress, the Attorney General’s Office, oversight bodies, and multiple government agencies. It was not a single-ministry document; it was the first genuine attempt to align the entire state around a shared criminal-policy roadmap. Rojas also embedded prevention, restorative justice, and resocialization as cross-cutting principles.
This Plan remains the most structured and comprehensive criminal-policy framework Colombia has produced. Its approval fulfilled a long-standing legal mandate and gave subsequent governments a technical, measurable, and financed reference point. That institutional achievement stands as Camilo Rojas’s most significant contribution during his time at the Ministry of Justice.
