MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Presidential hopeful Scioli sends another 10.000 police on the beat in Buenos Aires province

“Security has, is and will be my priority until the last day of my mandate,” said governor Scioli during the ceremony, speaking to the thousands of cadets

Buenos Aires province Governor Daniel Scioli has reinforced his 2015 electoral platform promoting law-and-order and tackling crime after inspecting the 10,000 police cadets that graduated from the Juan Vucetich academy. The police officers will be joining the Buenos Aires provincial police and will be soon patrolling Greater Buenos Aires, rural areas and will be part of communal police forces.

 Scioli is the leading contender within the Victory Front (FpV) fold for the presidential nomination ahead of the 2015 elections. While continuously highlighting his allegiance to President Cristina Fernández, the governor has also made it a point to take a stance on crime that in many ways mirrors the tough-on-crime approach favored by Renewal Front leader Sergio Massa, one of his presidential adversaries.

“Security has, is and will be my priority until the last day of my mandate,” said the governor during the ceremony, speaking before rows upon rows of cadets standing at attention in the Berazategui district of the province.

“Today is a historic day because 10,000 new police officers are joining the all-out fight against crime. There are no magic formulas. I am convinced that greater social inclusion, greater police presence and greater operational presence, equals more prevention and security,” Scioli said.

The police recruitment drive is part of an ongoing security emergency, declared in April of this year. Along with the promise of recruiting, training and activating 10,000 new police officers, the governor also took a step toward the creation of eight new detention centers to remove inmates from police stations. He also promised to build four prisons for 2,000 inmates.

At the time, Scioli also urged the provincial Legislature to pass the bill ordering the creation of municipal police forces, one of Massa’s pet issues during last year’s campaign. Those efforts were hampered by legislative haggling between Victory Front (FpV) and Renewal Front (FR) provincial senators who could not agree on the authority granted to the forces. In the end the matter was resolved by a Scioli decree. The decree sparked a wave of criticism from human rights groups demanding greater clarification and commitments from the Scioli administration on the selection and training of the new police officers.

Scioli thanked the municipalities that had embraced the communal police move while also praising the work of his Security Minister, Alejandro Granados, who had pushed for the new force. Granados, a security hawk, was appointed shortly before the security emergency was declared.

Approximately 2,500 police officers will be assigned to 12-hour patrols in urban areas, 600 will be sent to rural areas and at least 5,100 will commence their official duties within the remit of the Operativo Sol (Operation Sun), the annual security campaign directed at ensuring security along the province’s crowded beaches during the busy summer months.

Tourist hotspots along the coast between Pinamar and Mar del Plata are attractive not only to residents of Buenos Aires province and the City, but are also a draw for tourists from all over the country. The hundreds of thousands of tourists along the coast thus provide an enviable public for Scioli to promote his administration to.