Abstract

LORENZ, Mariana DA SILVA  and  PUGLIESE, Ornela. The local government of public security. The Unidades de Policía de Prevención Local of two cities located in the Gran Buenos Aires. Trab. soc. [online]. 2018, n.31, pp.87-105. ISSN 1514-6871.

In the present work we intend to investigate some aspects related to the emergence of the Unidades de Policía de Prevención Local (UPPL). The regulations that create these security forces establish general criteria for their homogeneous application throughout the territory of the Provincia de Buenos Aires but also enable the different districts to delineate particular initiatives. The importance of the role of the local government in this security policy allows that it acquires unique characteristics in each territory. For this reason it is interesting to be able to compare different UPPL and analyze what their similarities and differences are, see how in each district the general guidelines are applied and the particular initiatives are deployed. Here we will focus on some similarities that we find among the UPPL of two cities of Greater Buenos Aires in which we carried out field work. In both locations we find that the police officers mark the same elements as characteristic of their work: they are a law enforcement agency for prevention and proximity, their job is permanent, is learnt in the practice, there are differences between the tasks done in the streets and those more administrative done in the police station and, finally, a similar way of understanding the relation with their fire arms. Also another thing that all the UPPL have in common is that they don't have a rigid and vertical hierarchical system. The considerations set forth in this article are the product of a field work that consisted of interviews with officers and chiefs of the UPPL as well as the authorities of the security area of the two cities. We also read and analyzed the laws that regulate this institutions, as well as documents and official communications of the local governments of both towns.

Keywords : unidades de policía de prevención local; local governments; police; politics.

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