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The Buenos Aires police force (Photo: Daniel Muñoz/Télam)
The district of Avellaneda, immediately south of Buenos Aires, will be the first to create a new municipal police under the terms of a decree issued by provincial governor Daniel Scioli earlier in July.
Local mayor Jorge Ferraresi signed a resolution with provincial security minister Alejandro Granados yesterday, saying he hoped the new police unit would be in operation by February next year. The mayors of Lanús and provincial capital La Plata followed with similar agreements today.
Scioli signed the decree to create the “Police Units for Local Crime Prevention” on 3rd July after a police reform bill was held up by opposition in the provincial legislature. Granados justified the decision saying: “We hoped to create [the local police] with a new law and not a decree, but the people living in the province cannot wait another day for this.”
The new units will operate as a division of the Buenos Aires provincial police force, with the chief appointed by the security ministry in agreement with local mayors. According to the decree, the units will “strengthen crime prevention at the municipal level and extend the decentralisation of police operations”.
The main function of the new police units will be available for towns with a population of more the 70,000, and will focus on the prevention of local crime and improving the institution’s relationship with the community. They will also have a duty to combat domestic violence, with special patrol cars and female officers deployed for this objective.
Among the more controversial elements of the new unit is the ruling allowing the local police to carry their standard issue weapon 24 hours a day, even when not on duty.
The post Districts in BA Province Sign Up for Municipal Police Forces appeared first on The Argentina Independent.
