Neither schools nor hospitals. The only public work that the Government reactivates is the construction of more prisons

This Friday the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, spoke to the press alongside the head of the Buenos Aires government and other Macri officials in the security area. He did it in the neighborhood of Villa Soldatiin front of the Indoamericano Park, within the framework of the presentation of “modules” (containers conditioned by the company Ecosan) that will serve as cells for detainees that today overwhelm police stations and wardens in the City.

Next to Bullrich y Jorge Macri were Waldo WolffMinister of Security of CABA, Diego KravetzSecretary of Security and Chief of the Buenos Aires Police and Gabino Tapia, Minister of Justice of the same district. As it was learned, the three set up a prison “plan” to supposedly decompress local police agencies. A plan in which the Government of Javier Miley is directly involved in its realization.

There is silver

The scheme designed by the Buenos Aires Executive seeks to “resolve” prison overpopulation (which also occurs in all provinces and in federal prisons) through several means. Besides the creation of new alcaidías (work is already underway on one located in the southern part of the city) and of the “detention modules” (containers stuck to each other) inserted in patios and premises of police stations, there will be more electronic anklets for cases of prisoners for minor crimes and, at the same time, attempts will be made to ensure that the Judiciary expel convicted foreigners from the country.

The plan also includes the transfer of the federal prison located in the neighborhood of Villa Devoto a Marcos Paz. To do this, the construction of the Penitentiary Complex II from that Buenos Aires town. According to the agreement signed between the Nation and CABA, by the end of 2025 the 1,900 Devoto inmates should be in that other prison.

The “curious” fact is that The financing of the completion of the Marcos Paz complex will be the responsibility of the Buenos Aires Governmentalthough it belongs to Federal Penitentiary Servicesince last December 10 under the orbit of the ministry led by Bullrich.

The curious thing stops being so when you understand that everything is about a very beneficial give and take for Jorge Macri. It is estimated that the expense required to enable the Marcospace complex (30% of the works remains) will be much less than what the administration will receive as compensation. PRO.

According to the journalist Robertino Sánchez Flecha in Infobaethe Buenos Aires government plans to enable on the land of Villa Devoto “investments to give it another façade and economically exploit the place,” although the Macri administration “did not reveal details of what fate they will finally give it.” What is certain is that it will be a real estate megabusiness.

Needless to say, despite the “internal” PROespecially between Bullrich y Mauricio Macrifrom the Pink House They maintain a more than close relationship with the Buenos Aires administration. This “collaboration” on penitentiary matters is nothing more than confirmation of the ideological and political affinity between both administrations. More prisons, fewer schools and fewer hospitals.

The “exchange” of the lands of Villa Devoto for the completion of the works in Marcos Paz means a hidden nothing public works outsourcing nationals that, since December, Javier Miley and his entourage decided to stop dead. A decision that, in addition to suspending for an indefinite period the construction of roads, bridges and other infrastructure works, has already produced thousands of layoffs in the construction union (with the complicity of the Uocra driven by Gerardo “Battalion 601” Martínez).

But far from signing agreements for the construction of schools, hospitals, clubs and other works with progressive social purposes, Freedom Advances He only seems to be enthusiastic about building more prisons and detention facilities to house increasingly larger portions of the population. Hence, this Friday’s announcements are consistent with other initiatives of Bullrich. She herself took the opportunity to warn that in the Congress He has already presented four projects that would allow him to move forward with his plans.

In fact, last week two officials from the Ministry of National Security (who we will talk about in a future note) appeared before the Criminal Legislation and Internal Security commissions of the Chamber of Deputies to defend projects referring to “Public Order” (of which it is talked about in this other note), to “anti-mafia” measures, to extend penalties for “repetition” and to create a new national registry of genetic data. All initiatives that, if they become laws, will result in greater social criminalization and, consequently, greater prison overpopulation.

In that committee meeting, from the bench of the Left Front They precisely unmasked the repressive objectives disguised by the minister and her henchmen as “the fight against organized crime.” In the words of Myriam Bregmandeputy of PTS-FITUthese projects show a government willing to “live in a Exception status where there is no type of demonstration”, converting social protest into “organized crime” and giving more free rein to trigger-happy police.

But these repressive initiatives are also combined, not paradoxically, with the inclusion in the fiscal package (recently voted in Deputies) of the “money laundering” which allows funds from drug trafficking and other clandestine businesses to be brought into the legal market. “They are going to continue pursuing drug dealing, the sale of small items, when the big drug money is having a party and waiting for Argentina with a knife and fork because it is going to be a paradise for washing,” he stated. Bregman before the officials of Bullrich.

dehumanizing us

In the City of Buenos Aires there are more than 2,000 prisoners in police stations and wardens. Double the number of places available in the district. Or what is the same, 100% overpopulation. According to a recent report by the Penitentiary Attorney of the Nationof that total of people only 14% have a specific conviction, 58% are under preventive detention y the remaining 28% await a court decision about your situation.

In the province of Buenos Aires things look even worse. The long years of Peronist governorships have nothing to envy of their counterparts under the Buenos Aires Macrismo. According to the open data survey of the Provincial Commission for Memory (updated as of March), In several prisons of the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service (SPB), overcrowding ranges between 200 and 300%.. That is to say, where there should be one inmate, up to four can be housed. Inhuman no matter how you look at it.

The same record of the CPM states that, of the almost 58 thousand people detained in the custody of the SPBmore than 29 thousand are in preventive detention. Less than half are actually convicted. Percentage more, percentage less, this reality is repeated in almost all the country’s prisons, whether they are under provincial or federal administration.

More than half of the people detained today in Argentina are innocent, at least until proven otherwise. Even knowing that some of those detainees may be found guilty, it is no less true that In Argentina an industry of “armed causes” against “parsleys” proliferates (who after years in prison end up acquitted in trials without evidence) and that, at the same time, there are a paroxysmal abuse of preventive prisons for poor people by judges and prosecutors.

In this framework, the fact that the only “serious” policy of the State is the construction of more and more prisons (something that all traditional political parties share when it is their turn to govern), far from solving the really existing problems, will only lead to higher levels of incarceration of the population.

Given this, it is worth remembering a key fact. According to HIM, at the end of 2021 there were 142 people detained worldwide per 100,000 inhabitants. That relationship, known as the incarceration rate, in Argentina far exceeds the average. For that same year, there were 221 detainees in the country per 100,000 inhabitants (306 in the province of Buenos Aires). Given the historical trend, in these three years that incarceration rate did not stop growing.

It is obvious that the policies of Freedom Advances They do not go in the opposite direction to the growth of that incarceration rate. Nor those implemented by the Peronist governments. Policies that combine adjustment on the working population (for the benefit of parasitic business minorities), degradation of the general living conditions of the majority, criminalization of poverty y open repression of social protest.

As the “strawberry” of this reactionary cocktail, official initiatives on “security” are deployed today, led by Bullrich but sustained as a reason of state no matter who governs. Therefore, in addition to fighting to defeat the Bases Law and DNU 70/2023, if facing the war plan of mercy it is also It will be necessary to combat the “security” policies of the extreme right.