Police Reform in Santa Fe, Argentina: Context, Process Oscillations and Challenges: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18847/1.11.9

Abstract

Since the 90's, Latin America suffers high violent crime rates, a problem of which neither Argentina nor the province of Santa Fe are exempt, and where the issue of drug trafficking has a distinctive impact. In the course of the growing problems of urban crime, the police began to be put into question, either due to lack of effectiveness in preventing crime, its discretion, its spurious links to the crime world, or the lack of external controls. In addition, with the emergence of the citizen security paradigm, as a goal to achieve, and police reform as a means to such end, several reform experiences began with varied results. However, a police reform cannot be conducted in a vacuum; following several contemporary studies referred to the situation in the region and particularly in Argentina, the political, socio-economic and institutional contexts deserve to be considered in order to inquire about the development, improvements, or setbacks, of police reforms. Based on analytical tools from the new institutionalism and institutional change approaches the police reform of the province of Santa Fe is characterized and analyzed, taking into account legacies, resistance or inertia of any institution facing a process of change, as well as the combination of situations that represented turning points and favored the change process, its results and challenges. The article, covering the period 1983-2015, gives an account of the successive measures that were forming the police reform in Santa Fe, that in a fragmentary way, in their planning and implementation, sedimented layers where institutional change was brewing, which is characterized as an institutional bricolage, combining old and new elements in the police organization.