Argentina's President Mauricio Macri attends the three-day World Economic Forum on Latin America in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 6, 2017. Xinhua/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
Heavy fisted approaches to public security are making a come-back across the Americas, including in Argentina. Despite registering some of the lowest rates of criminal violence in Latin America, the country´s new government wasted no time to applying so-called "mano dura" strategies to fight organized crime. In 2015, just weeks after getting into office President Macri issued a state of "public emergency" (which was extended into 2016). He came to power vowing to eradicate organized crime. His initial efforts suggest he´s made some headway. While appealing to many, militarizing the fight against crime can backfire.
Hard-line approaches to combating criminal violence are hardly new to Argentina. But they do mark a change from the previous decade. Over the past year, the Argentinian public authorities pushed for an array of reforms - to lower the penal age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14, speed-up deportations of foreigners involved in crimes, incarcerate low-level drug offenders, extend prison sentences, and authorize the shooting down of planes suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. While these approaches go down well with voters, their record of success in the longer term is mixed.
