Political dynamics and normative production around the security policies of the Province of Buenos Aires, 1997-2015

Abstract

One of the cores characteristics of the security public sector policies in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, was its endemic and chronical instability. We defend three main conclusions in this article in specifically reference to the relationship between law and politics on reference to the police affaires issue: a) police reform were characterized by a great juridical and normative production; b) the counter-reforms did not repealed de main laws sanctioned by the reformist leaders, but nevertheless, in several aspects, they came back to the status quo existing before the reforms interventions thus the ongoing validity of police reforming laws; c) the importance of the norms (in the Argentinian legal structures: laws, decrees, resolutions, didn´t show a coherent relationship with the importance of the politics the stablished (i.e., the biggest growths in the numbers of agents that took place in Buenos Aires Police since the return of democratic regimen was hold out by a ministerial resolution, the less important instance in the normative hierarchy. To offer proves for this argument we focus on five critical periods: 1) the first great reform of public security sector in Buenos Aires (1997-1999); 2) the counter-reform in the period 1999-2001; 3) the second great reform in 2004-2007; 4) the tougher politics on crime in the first Governor Scioli´s administration (2007-2011) and 5) the police decentralization consisting in the creation of the “Communitarian Prevention Patrols” (CPC) and the Local Police Units (LPC).