The problem of detainees in the City of Buenos Aires has been collapsing for some time.
Overpopulation
in police stations and wardens
, the failed project to move the Devoto prison, the majority of crimes in the hands of the National Justice and the lack of places in the federal orbit are serious problems that do not find a definitive solution.
The flow of detainees only increases, but far from becoming a palliative to the problem of insecurity, it generates another: Where do these detainees go?
What is going to happen to them?
For what purpose are they detained?
Is criminal policy efficient?
Since
Jorge Macri
took office in the City, the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security remained in the hands of
Waldo Wolf
.
They arrested 4,292 people between December 10 and January 31.
Many were released due to the characteristics of the crime, but the rest are accumulated in collapsed spaces without the security conditions to house prisoners.
In the City of Buenos Aires there are some
1,959 people in confinement
between police stations and wardens that are not prepared to house people for prolonged periods.
They don't have showers or beds.
There are also no visiting areas and family members must provide food because there is no place to refrigerate or cook it.
Safety conditions
are not guaranteed
, not to mention the objectives of social reintegration, workshops, study or attention to addictions.
As confirmed by official sources, there are 400 of those detained who are in police stations and who already have a final sentence.
They should be transferred to a prison to serve their sentence.
In October there was an attempted mutiny in Alcaidía 12C in Villa Urquiza.
Photo Juano Tesone
In addition,
there are 1,500 police officers assigned to guard those prisoners
who are not trained and who “should be fulfilling other functions,” they say.
Wolff told
Clarín
that “the building and security conditions are not met, because the police stations do not have the conditions to house prisoners and the Police were not trained for that.”
“We have a serious problem because this problem (
N. de R
.: the lack of places in federal prisons) became much worse during the previous government.
The flow (of arrests) was growing because we are moving towards a
change in the actions of the Police
.
We have more detainees and our quick reaction means that each new detainee is sent to a police station, which requires a police officer to be taken off the street to guard them.
The better we do our job, the more the situation gets worse,” analyzes Wolff.
The average number of arrests in almost two months grew to
85 per day
, double that of 2022, according to official data.
In 2022, according to data from the National Penitentiary Prosecutor's Office,
17,048 people
were detained , an average of 46.7 arrests daily.
Police Station 3B of the City Police from which 9 prisoners escaped on October 10.
Photo Archive / Juano Tesone
The decision of the new Buenos Aires management is not to slow down the pace of arrests, but quite the opposite: they have already announced the presence of 300 more police officers in communes 1, 2 and 14, according to data from the crime map.
Those considered “minor” or “mild” are the crimes that grow the most: thefts, intra-family fights or linked to social conflict or mental health problems and the majority are caught flagrante delicto, that is, at the moment they occur.
Many of these arrests end in formal arrests not because of the seriousness of the crime but because they are committed by
people with criminal records
or suspended prison sentences for other similar reasons.
40 percent of the people they capture, according to data from the Ministry of City Security, have a criminal record.
And of those arrests, more than half ended up free by judicial decision.
The City Police doubled the number of arrests but has nowhere to house the prisoners.
Specifically, while there are more and more arrests,
there is no place to house those detainees
.
And much less a criminal policy that aims to prevent them from relapsing into a life of crime.
“The majority of arrests generated by the City are cases that correspond to the Judicial Branch of the Nation.
It is a Ministry of Justice and Security that cannot define criminal policy with the Judiciary or with the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF), which is responsible for defining what
social reintegration strategies
they propose, which do not take into account the capacity accommodation, they are acting in a disconnected manner,” questions a lawyer specialized in prison issues.
The lack of quotas
In 2020, and with the pandemic hitting the world, prisons were isolated from visits and with the latent danger of the
coronavirus
entering the prisons, almost all of them overflowing and with serious infrastructure problems.
This situation led to a flood of appeals for protection to release prisoners for medical reasons and was the perfect excuse for many to obtain lightening of sentences.
This is how the SPF stabilized the quota situation.
They currently have a population of 11,348 throughout the country and an overoccupancy of 103.81 percent.
But to sustain it and aggravated by a political conflict between the management of Alberto Fernández and that of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, they limited the places available for CABA and the Buenos Aires police stations collapsed.
The Devoto prison houses 1,800 detainees and depends on the Nation.
There is a project to move it.
Photo Archive / Luciano Thieberger
Since then, the City of Buenos Aires has increasingly increased the flow of arrests.
Thus,
murderers, thieves and drug traffickers share cells in police stations with cell phone attackers
or people who participated in a street fight.
Escapes were repeated in CABA offices and criminals escaped through the roofs of houses in Flores, San Cristobal.
And Buenos Aires residents witnessed protests, lock operations and emergency arrests.
Although many of these criminals were recaptured, others were not.
The City went from having 61 detainees in wardens and police stations in March 2020 to 1,900 with an
overpopulation of 200 percent
.
Now, with better links with the Ministry of National Security, headed by Patricia Bullrich, who also took charge of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the problem worsens every day.
Julián Curi was in charge of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Sources in the area warned that upon taking office they found "very little investment" in the orbit of the prison units, "two prisons to finish, a decline in the service and penitentiary infrastructure."
They described it as "a very complicated situation."
"In the penitentiary treatment part, a very particular vision prevailed, there was no classification of the most complicated cases, there was a romantic view of the prisoner," they questioned.
The truth is that, in the midst of the economic crisis and the adjustment carried out by the National Government, it seems difficult to complete the works or the construction of new prisons.
Bullrich announced that they will soon finish the Coronda prison, which is 97 percent complete and denied administration to the province of Santa Fe, in a bid for the situation with prisoners for drug trafficking.
Devotee and the move
For the Nation and the City,
moving the Devoto prison is a concrete possibility
, they trust.
But there is no indication that that is close to happening.
The work on the Ricardo Gutiérrez Complex, in Marcos Paz,
is 70% complete
, they warned, and what was built during the previous administration with budgets from the national government.
The remaining percentage was to be provided by the City but, due to the conflict over co-participation (at least that was the excuse announced by Larreta), the work was suspended, the funds were not available to finish it and no progress was ever made.
"The Nation provided the money and the City did not," the former Ministry of Justice complained.
This unit would have about
2,300 places available
.
But they would only be enough to move the
1,800 detainees in Devoto
and decompress the Buenos Aires police stations, where there are
1,900 prisoners
: it was not finished and is no longer enough for all the Buenos Aires prisoners.
At Devoto, spaces are limited.
For one prisoner to enter, another has to leave.
Photo Archive / Luciano Thieberger
The SPF is strict when managing quotas because there are several court rulings that limit them.
One of them was imposed by Judge Daniel Rafecas who limited the capacity in the Devoto prison: they cannot accommodate even one more prisoner.
Or at least
not before another one comes out.
"The actions of the Police have a limit, here there has to be a comprehensive approach, that is why we need new tools. The law of repetition is one of them. With the national government, which is a new government with which we have ideological agreements, "We have to quickly find a way to reverse this situation. We talk constantly," Wolf analyzed.
MG