Crime and the administration of criminal justice in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1785-1853

This dissertation analyzes the emergence of the criminal justice system in modern Argentina, focusing on the city of Buenos Aires as case study. It concentrates on what I call the formative period of the postcolonial penal system, from the installation of the second Audiencia (superior justice tribunal in the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata) in 1785 to the promulgation of the Argentine national constitution in 1853, when a new phase of inter-regional organization and codification began. During this transitional period, basic features of the modern Argentine criminal justice system emerged which I study in detail. They are: (a) institutional subordination of the judiciary; (b) police interference and disruption in the judiciary-civil society interface; (c) manipulation of the initial stages of the judicial process (sumario) by senior police officers (comisarios); and (d) utilization of institutionally malleable penal-legal procedures as a punitive system, regardless of the outcome of criminal cases judicially evaluated