The Political Game of Police Reform

Abstract

The State on the Streets, which focuses on Mercedes Hinton’s impressive research on the politics of police reform in Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s, begins with a review of literatures on policing. ‘‘In all societies,’’ Hinton notes, ‘‘the police evolved in some measure out of state efforts to extend and consolidate its power and contain the disorderly effects of the ‘dangerous classes’’’ (p. 3). In her initial argument, Hinton posits that policing, even in consolidated democracies, rests on a contradiction. Specifically, policing, a coercive component of the state, must also protect life and property through the threat and the use of force. In Hinton’s words, the ‘‘police role in any democracy is [thus] bound to be contentious’’ (p. 4). The State on the Streets has twelve chapters, divided into a first part on Argentina and a second part on Brazil. Hinton’s conclusion returns to the conundrum highlighted in her introduction: Is democratic policing ‘‘a distant reality’’? Much of the data for the book’s empirical chapters comes from Hinton’s extensive fieldwork in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, respectively. In five chapters devoted to Argentina, Hinton uses a wealth of primary and secondary information to weave a sophisticated analysis of Argentina’s ‘‘political game,’’ which explains the ‘‘politicization’’ of the Argentinian police and the failure of various police reform initiatives. Argentina’s ‘‘political game’’ involves: (1) corruption at all levels, which produces an image of official invulnerability; (2) a population ‘‘weary of and reluctant about political participation’’ (p. 80); (3) a lack of vertical and horizontal accountability, which Hinton describes as a ‘‘weakness in the citizenry’s capacity to make itself heard’’ and a failure of ‘‘effective checks and balances across governments’’ (p. 79), respectively; (4) a ‘‘weak political party system’’ (p. 79); and (5) fierce political party competition that uses crime and the fear of crime as the social problem du jour. Within the context of ‘‘blame-trading’’ that results from these factors, politicians engage in a process of searching for and developing public security reforms that appear to represent, as much as anything, political public theater. In the end, this image captures the spirit of Hinton’s argument as well. As Hinton explains, in Argentina the fierce search for public security reform amounted to little because ‘‘much of the hastily approved legislation was either partially applied or disregarded altogether’’ (p. 87). Hinton’s conclusion for Argentina applies in large part to Brazil as well. As Hinton puts it, the Brazilian state just like ‘‘the Argentine State failed to accomplish police reform, primarily due to the characteristics of its political game’’ (p. 89). But