Puerto Rico House members Wanda del Valle Correa, Adriana Gutiérrez Colón and Estrella Martínez Soto began a tour of the Puerto Rico Police Bureau’s Gender Violence Division offices in Carolina to gather data aimed at improving services for victims. Del Valle Correa, of the New Progressive Party (PNP), said the goal is to learn why so many cases collapse when they reach court.
She said precinct officers outside the specialized division are often not prepared to handle a gender violence case, and that they receive no gender violence training unless they belong to the specialized unit. The Carolina division has requested 10 additional agents, she said. Legislation has been filed to increase the training hours required to handle these cases properly.
Puerto Rico has 13 specialized units for victims of violence by a partner or spouse, but there is a shortage of agents prepared to gather and process the data needed to build a case. Del Valle Correa said the tour will continue to Caguas and mountain areas to identify the distances units must travel. Gutiérrez Colón lamented that incidents keep rising despite government efforts and years after an emergency was declared.
She cited poor coordination among police, courts and others, a lack of continuing education, and a specialized division with seven agents that is overwhelmed and has no weekend coverage. According to the Gender Equity Observatory of Puerto Rico, as of March there were 13 femicides, four of them intimate-partner killings, with nine under investigation. In 2025, 63 femicides were recorded. Attempts totaled 25 by March 2026, three involving minors.