By Latin American standards, Argentina is a law-abiding country whose inhabitants are far less prone to commit murder or be gunned down by thugs than is the case elsewhere in the region. Why, then, do so many people in high places – among them the Security Minister Patricia Bullrich – believe that the threat posed by the bloodthirsty drug lords active in Rosario and, though less is said about it, in the badlands of Greater Buenos Airaes, has become so frightening that the military should be called in to deal with them?
For this to happen, Congress would have to rewrite the rules barring the Armed Forces from playing any role in matters related to internal security. These were passed a couple of decades ago when the Kirchnerites – especially those who in previous years had pursued a career as urban guerrillas belonging to the Montoneros organisation – sought to weaken them and also to punish the men in uniform who had helped thwart their attempt to stage a thoroughgoing revolution.
To complicate matters still further, the military chiefs themselves would much rather keep things the way they are because they know that taking on the drug cartels would confront them with a host of very difficult problems they would be unable to solve. The last thing they want is to be ordered to engage in police work even if, for a week or so, people greeted the soldiers with enthusiastic applause whenever they appeared in their neighbourhood. As they well know, the “dirty war” their predecessors waged against a variety of terrorist organisations was widely supported when it began, but later became unpopular for reasons that had little to do with the systematic abuse of basic human rights for which they ended up paying a heavy price. Some elderly men allegedly linked to crimes committed in those days are still behind bars.
While there can be no doubt that the offensive launched by the drug-gangs plaguing Rosario – whose bosses say they will continue to kill “innocents” unless their demands are met – merits a very strong response, common sense suggests that this should be left in the hands of a beefed-up Gendarmerie (Border Guard) and the regular police. Militarising the city would not necessarily produce the desired results, though for a while it could make its inhabitants feel a bit safer as they go about their business. When Dilma Rousseff occupied the Brazilian Presidency, they sent large numbers of gun-toting soldiers into crime-infested districts in Rio de Janeiro; it made for an impressive spectacle, but despite such efforts their country continued to be far more violent than Argentina, with a homicide rate which is about five times as high.
Needless to say, being told that the situation is far worse in Brazil, let alone Mexico or Ecuador, does not make people here feel any better. Most seem to be convinced that the country is suffering an unprecedented crime wave in which ordinary citizens are getting slaughtered by bands of thugs high on cocaine and other drugs. The feeling that ruthless criminals are running amok is intensified by the ubiquity of street-surveillance cameras and those mounted on mobile phones which record what happens in “real time” and immediately send it to the news networks. This means that incidents which would once have been consigned to, at most, a paragraph in a newspaper few will have read, can have an enormous impact on public opinion and, naturally enough, lead to demands that something drastic be done to put an end to such atrocities. This, by and large, is what happened in the United States when the death-struggle of a black suspect being throttled by a white policeman was caught on camera.
Like Tony Blair in his heyday, most politicians here want the authorities to be tough not only on crime but also the causes of crime. The first part of the former British prime minister’s formula may seem fairly straightforward; treat lawbreakers as roughly as they treat their victims and, if they are arrested and charged, ensure that they are all put away for a lengthy period instead of being let free by friendly judges who tell them to show more respect for the law in future.
However, a hard-line approach, like the one the government has adopted, can easily prove counterproductive. If the cops get too trigger-happy, innocent bystanders within range will run a greater risk of being shot by them than by criminals. There is also the habit bent coppers have of taking advantage of any extra leeway granted them and using it to extort protection money from shop-owners and other upstanding citizens. What is more, new prisons would have to be built to house all those who would get convicted if magistrates became less lenient, which is something that, for now, Argentina simply cannot afford.
As for the causes of crime, debates on the subject have been going on for thousands of years and have yet to reach any definitive conclusion. This is hardly surprising. Philosophers, religious leaders, sociologists, psychologists and political theorists are naturally prone to base their thinking on their own personal preferences, so while some insist that the ungodly are more likely to do wrong than believers who are convinced that an omniscient and vengeful deity is watching their every step, others blame an unjust society for the misdeeds of any of its members. For many centuries, in Europe and surrounding areas religious explanations predominated and punishments were appropriately severe, but they were eventually replaced by the kinder ideological explanations which are favoured by even moderately conservative politicians.
Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that those societies in which people tend to trust not just one another but also the authorities, especially the police, are more law-abiding than others. This was certainly the case in Scandinavian countries before large-scale immigration produced demographic changes that have made them far more violent than they used to be. For a time, the United Kingdom was a country in which the friendly local bobbies enjoyed the support of most of the population and could be relied upon to dissuade would-be evildoers without having to threaten them with a gun.
In Argentina, however, trust is hard to come by. While it may be presumed that most people feel at ease with family members, close friends and even inoffensive neighbours, it would seem that they are as convinced as President Javier Milei clearly is that virtually all politicians and those in league with them are as crooked as they come. Has this had an influence on the behaviour of the barely-literate and dope-addled young men who are responsible for most of the crimes that, for a couple of days, alarm the public? It is reasonable to assume that it has.
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