This chapter examines the persistent challenges of police reform in Latin America, attributing the cyclical nature of these efforts to a fundamental tension between democratic policing and punitive approaches, a dynamic referred to as the “pendulum of public security”. It is argued that understanding Latin American policing requires a historical perspective to reveal the long-standing duality of military and social roles, which are deeply rooted in colonialism and the construction of a “rule of difference” as a way of imperial governance. Specifically, within the reforms and modernisation debates, the chapter explores the increasing adoption of technology in the region’s police forces to illustrate that while intended to modernise and improve effectiveness, these tools often serve to reinforce the existing and historical inequalities rather than fundamentally altering policing practices or addressing underlying issues of public trust and accountability. Ultimately, technology in Latin American policing is intricately linked to a continuous “ontology of insecurity”, functioning as an artful means of engineering to sustain the historical patterns of governance through social differentiation defined by the rule of difference.