ARGENTINA: Police Corruption – Not a Box-Office Hit

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Feb 7 1997 (IPS) - Plots featuring police involvement in criminal activity are not box-office hits in Argentina, but real life.

In a survey carried out by the Centre for Public Opinion Studies here, 85.3 percent of those interviewed said they felt unsafe, while 44.4 percent said they mistrusted the police.

The latest case in which the main suspects are police was the murder of journalistic photographer Jose Luis Cabezas, whose body was found handcuffed and shot in his car in January.

Politicians immediately began to speculate about “mafias”, “armed gangs” and “criminal organisations”, and whether Argentine society was undergoing a “Colombianisation” in terms of rising criminal violence.

But anthropologist Sofia Tiscornia, an expert on institutional violence and citizen security, told IPS that in Argentina the problem was not one of mafias like those operating in Italy or the United States, private organisations that bribe government agents, but “the police themselves who promote, organise and commit crimes for their own benefit.”

Tiscornia warned of the danger that the police are let off the hook under the assumption that they act on behalf of third parties.

In the two weeks since Cabezas’ body was found, several police chiefs have been removed from the case for committing “irremediable” errors, whether due to negligence or complicity, and a police commissioner was sacked for ignoring an alert received prior to the murder.

According to research by the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, police gangs abound in Argentina.

Some specialise in taking a cut from prostitution, the drug trade or gambling, while others rob trucks loaded with electronic appliances, resell the merchandise and report those who bought the “stolen goods.” The study also mentions agents who receive commissions for sending those injured in traffic accidents to certain attorneys’ offices, and others who make evidence of tax evasion disappear for the right price.

In 1996, two investigative journalists uncovered a police racket in the province of Buenos Aires in which agents received money from drug traffickers. The police in question were tried and acquitted. In another investigation by reporters in 1996, agents of the fraud division were discovered attempting to extort members of the business community, offering to hide evidence of tax evasion.

In one of the most serious cases of suspected police involvement, the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association, 86 people were killed.

In an interview with IPS, former police inspector Edgardo Mastandrea said the police forces were experiencing “their most profound crisis ever,” and contended that the population’s “paranoia is fully justified.”

According to Mastandrea, the widespread corruption is largely a result of the meagre wages earned by police. “Once you start to steal for your superiors, it is a small step to steal for yourself, which feeds the circle of police corruption.”

“The problem is a lack of political will,” he contended.

Mastandrea, who was sacked for his criticism of the security policy in the province of Buenos Aires, said that when democracy was restored back in 1983, the government painted police corruption as a legacy from the dictatorship. But he argued that such an excuse has become obsolete because a majority of today’s police agents donned their uniforms after democracy was reinstated.