Federal Police, most notably the successful grassroots campaign to end the use of police
edicts with in the Federal Capital.
22
However, police training has not changed since the
1970s, the bodies responsible for internal review have neither the autonomy nor authority
to pursue cases of widespread violence and corruption, and both fear and extortion
encourage most civilian authorities to drop efforts to prosecute corrupt or violent police
personnel.
23
Death by shooting tends to be the most widely publicized and most frequent act of
police violence during the democratizing period. While the overall homicide rate has
fallen since 1985, the number of citizens killed by police personnel has risen, as has the
number of police deaths (Table 4.1 and 4.2). In recent years, the number of civilians
killed in confrontations with the Federal Police represent almost a third of total homicides
in the Federal Capital. In addition, the number of civilians killed by the police far
outnumbers the amount of police killed by civilians. A report compiled by researchers at
the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Center for Legal and Social Studies, CELS)
points out that while it is reasonable to assume that more civilians than police personnel
die in confrontations between the police and suspected criminals, extreme disparities
between these two rates indicate the use of excessive force by police agents. The report
concludes that armed confrontations and the use of indiscriminate force on the part of the
22
Grassroots organizations pressured for the end of police edicts when the city of Buenos
Aires gained its autonomy in 1994. The twenty-three edicts, some of which date as far back as 1772 but
the majority of which were put into place during in 1932, use personal characteristics for the basis instead
of criminal acts as the basis for arrest and allow for the arrest and detention of a suspect for up to thirty
days. In practice, these edicts targeted certain groups such as the poor, the young, homosexuals and
transvestites. An individual detainee under an edict has no right to defense or to due process. In the 1990s,
the Federal Police arrested an average of 153.000 individuals annually under these edicts. See Pereira and
Ungar. “Mano Dura.” 279-280; Chiller, Gastón. 1998. “La sanción de un código de convivencia urbana:
Causas y effectos de la eliminación de las detenciones arbitraries por parte de la policía federal.” Las
Reformas Policiales en Argentina. Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales.
23
Pereira and Ungar. “Mano Dura.” 279-280.
Convention