Silvia Fesquet
07/26/2020 - 19:44
- Clarín.com
- Opinion
The quarantine seemed to have worked the miracle: from his hand, in the first weeks, the crime figures had fallen significantly. At the end of April, more robberies were already detected in the main cities of the country. In mid-June, insecurity hit again fiercely: in eight days the Province recorded four deaths in five events, among them the crime of the t-shirt that the group was waiting to go to work at dawn and that begged the criminals for their lives. To the rhythm of the disputes between Province and Nation, far from being resolved the issue continued to escalate. In the last week, a series of cases, brutal in every way, exhibited it in the most stark way. A work by Clarín, published yesterday, put figures to what is a reality as pressing as the pandemic. So far this year, in Buenos Aires territory, there have been 74 homicides: 40 robbery victims and 34 thieves.
Behind the numbers are the stories and open veins of a cannibal society: assaults often occur between neighbors: a poor person steals from another, - perhaps hardly less poor - even what he does not have , with its aftermath of lives shattered. "I was not born to kill," said Jorge Ríos, the Quilmes retiree who killed one of the thieves who tried to rob him at his home three times in one night. “We do not condemn the older man who did; reacted as any of us would have, "justified the aunt of another assailant killed by another retiree, when he entered to rob the man's house in Mar del Plata. Fright on fright, the scourge of justice by its own hand is gaining ground in a society that does not feel protected by those who should guarantee their safety. And that he also assists, helplessly, to an erratic, uneven or directly null application of the law : in the midst of quarantine, with the exponential growth of coronavirus infections and strict and tedious controls for those who must go to work, all Quilmes saw the funeral procession of the brave bar of that club dismissing the dead assailant at the hands of the retired Ríos. Another of the thieves, arrested for the same act, had been benefited months ago with the controversial mass release from the pandemic.
Crime without punishment is the definition that the Spanish Royal Academy gives for impunity. This can be related to injustice in two ways: who or those who committed the crime did not receive sanction, and / or the victims did not agree to repair the damage. Nothing is accidental. "Impunity represents a phenomenon that multiplies and feeds back the consequences of other social problems such as insecurity, violence or corruption," explained Juan Le Clerq Ortega, PhD in Political Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and one of the experts who developed the Global Impunity Index (IGI). Part of the conclusions of the work is that the greater impunity, less human development and greater inequality. That as impunity increases, the GDP per capita decreases, and that the more inequality grows, the more impunity does. An unbeatable breeding ground. A correlation was also established between the rule of law and corruption: the higher the levels of corruption, they found, the higher the level of impunity, and the level of impunity is also greater as the respect for the rule of law is lower. . Precisely the Rule of Law Index prepared by the World Justice Project known last March placed Argentina 48th out of 128 countries, in a ranking led by Denmark. The variables taken into account are limits to government power, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory compliance, civil justice and criminal justice. In terms of Order and security, the country ranked 108th. In Criminal Justice, 68th.
Beyond the indices, there are signs. It does not seem to be the best that Cristina Kirchner's lawyer integrates the Advisory Council that will design changes in the judicial system . The same one in which the vice president has several causes for corruption open and when the suspicion overflows that what is sought is, precisely, impunity. As it is said of Caesar's wife, she must not only be honored. Furthermore, it must appear so.