The opposition encourages the creation of municipal police officers for the mayors of the province of Buenos Aires

On the occasion of the inauguration of the new Municipal Police Operations Center in San Miguel, which took place this Friday, the former mayor of that district and current provincial senator of Juntos, Joaquín De la Torre, announced that he presented in the Legislature a bill to create municipal police officers in the 135 municipalities of the province of Buenos Aires that will depend entirely on the mayors. The initiative, which is already in force in his district, comes amid the demand of some mayors of the PRO to transfer the Local Police to municipal orbit: a demand that so far has not been echoed by the Buenos Aires Executive.

De la Torre's plan is different from that of the mayors of the PRO. While the community chiefs demand the transfer, what the senator proposes is the creation of a new security force, which in San Miguel has been in operation since 2015. According to data from the Public Prosecutor's Office, since 2013 to this party crime in that district of the First Electoral Section decreased.

In the text presented this Friday in the Buenos Aires Senate, to which Infobae had access, it is clarified that the Municipal Police will depend “functionally, administratively, financially and organically on the Mayor of the Municipality”, who ends up adhering to the law. Such accession must be made through the deliberative council, as should the appointment of the head of that force. It will be proposed by the mayor but must have the endorsement of the deliberator.

The idea is similar to what was the original Local Police project that was later - during the legislative treatment in 2014 - was modified and ended up being approved almost as another division of the Buenos Aires police. At that time, De la Torre argued that La Campora and Nuevo Encuentro had intervened and changed the original project promoted by Scioli.

Of the municipalities that ended up with Local Police - districts of more than 70,000 inhabitants - San Miguel was the only one who did not adhere to the operation of that force. De la Torre then, he drove his own police.

There are several differences between local and municipal police. One of them, for example, is that it will have its own premises and that there will be no detentions. In addition, the training and training of Municipal Police personnel, their programs and curricula, will be designed by each municipality and supervised by the Ministry of Justice and Security of the province.

The mayors will also be responsible for administrative management, human resources management, economic, accounting and financial management, budget management, wealth and infrastructure management, legal-legal assistance and advice, and institutional relations.

The municipality of San Miguel assures that the crime rate is low percentage and continuous and directly linked to the functioning of the municipal police. From 2013 to this part, for example, there was a 61% decrease in car thefts.

The discussion of resources and the management of Buenos Aires security is not new. However, in recent months it regained notoriety after the advance of two opposition mayors. Julio Garro, from La Plata and Néstor Grindetti, from Lanús, are leading the transfer of the local police to municipal orbit. “No one knows the territory better than a mayor. We must have the tools necessary to deal with crime and ensure that neighbors live more peacefully,” Garro asked during the opening of sessions in La Plata. In the same vein, Grindetti expressed himself. The intention of the mayors is that the operation of the Local Police “should be carried out by the community chiefs and the security policy should continue under the leadership of the provincial Ministry of Security”.

The maximum tension on this issue occurred weeks ago when the governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof and the Minister of Security, Sergio Berni, handed over 14 patrol boats to the municipality of San Nicolás and in the middle of the conference the president and the official they crossed paths with Mayor Manuel Passaglia, because of the number of mobile phones that the district had and the state of the cars. After the controversy, the Nicoleño mayor also ended up calling for the transfer of the local police to the district.

One of the points of contact between the Local Police and the Municipal Police has to do with the first objective: a preventive and community force. For example, it does not perform intelligence actions. The bill that entered the Senate this Friday where Juntos has the same number of senators as the Frente de Todos is expected to take parliamentary status in the next session of the Buenos Aires upper house.

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