“Absolutely false” and “malicious”: the fight between the City and Patricia Bullrich over the prisoners heats up with a harsh exchange of letters

The Buenos Aires Justice Minister, Gabino Tapia , was chosen by Jorge Macri to respond to the harsh letter sent by the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, to her Buenos Aires counterpart, Waldo Wolff, in the midst of the dispute over the transfer of detainees from the national Justice Department's police stations to federal prisons.

According to a statement released by the Buenos Aires Justice Department, Tapia explained in the letter that for the City to assume the responsibility of housing detainees from the national Justice Department , an agreement with the National State is necessary that includes the transfer of resources and the creation of a local Penitentiary Service with the appropriate infrastructure and personnel.

"Until that happens, the sole responsibility lies with the National State through the Ministry of Security and the Federal Penitentiary Service," he stressed.

He also said that “the City has shown its best predisposition to work together and solve a problem that was inherited from previous administrations.” “However, an effective solution cannot be based on a completely mistaken conception of the legal obligations of each of our governments , as is proposed by Minister Bullrich in her note,” he added.

The Buenos Aires Minister of Justice also stated that all decisions adopted in the reference process were “systematically breached by the Ministry of National Security.”

In his text, he agreed with Bullrich that it is the Ministry of National Security that is in charge of safeguarding national public security, with the Federal Penitentiary Service being responsible for the custody and care of detainees, and he clarified that the powers of the Federal Penitentiary Service have not yet been transferred to the City.

He stressed that it is not the responsibility of the City Police to permanently house detainees who are at the disposal of the national justice system with criminal jurisdiction.

In this regard, he recalled a resolution issued on November 25, 2024 before the Criminal, Contravention and Misdemeanor Court No. 3, the Federal Penitentiary Service was ordered to comply with the judgment of July 6, 2020, and consequently, to admit all convicted persons, whether or not they have a final conviction, as well as to set a schedule for the transfer of all persons detained in police stations and jails in the City, with a minimum of 130 or 140 places per week.

Along the same lines, he stressed that Bullrich's statement that she has a legal obligation to receive only 60/70 detainees per week in the Federal Penitentiary System is "clearly fallacious," since the legal obligation of the Federal Penitentiary Service, and therefore of the Ministry of National Security, is to receive all detainees who are housed in police stations and jails in the City.

He also indicated that there are multiple legal and constitutional provisions that prohibit, as a rule, the housing of detainees in police stations and jails. In this regard, he highlighted the resolution of October 29 of last year, when the Federal Court of Criminal Appeals urged federal judges throughout the country to adopt the necessary and immediate measures so that detainees are housed in appropriate establishments of the Federal Penitentiary Service, avoiding their housing in police stations.

Tapia described as “malicious the alleged predisposition of the Ministry of National Security to install modular regimes on national properties, as well as the alleged extension of places referred to in the note”, because, he clarified, as soon as the corresponding technical meetings began, it was that same ministry that decided to back down on both issues.

Regarding the new complex located in Marcos Paz, he said that work has been resumed, that the purpose of this prison unit is to vacate the Devoto prison, and that this "does not dilute the obligation to transfer detainees from police stations and jails in the City to the Federal Penitentiary Service."

He also described as “absolutely false” Bullrich’s statement that the Argentine federal penitentiary system is paying for 6,000 detainees from the City, because it is the Nation that, given the failure to transfer them to the Federal Penitentiary Service, should be paying the cost of the detainees who are housed in police stations and jails in the City.

He explained that more than 90% of the people detained in police stations and jails in the City are at the disposal of the National Criminal and Correctional Justice based in the City and that for the City to assume such jurisdiction there must be an agreement with the National State and the consequent transfer of funds.

Gabino Tapia also stated that "whether the magistrates of the National Criminal and Correctional Justice based in the City are national judges, as the name of said jurisdiction indicates, the detainees at their disposal must automatically be housed in facilities of the Federal Penitentiary Service ."

He said that this is a legal obligation that is being "systematically violated" by the Ministry of National Security, and that it is a direct consequence of what is established in Law 20,416 of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

They also cited numbers. On March 20, 2020, they said, the City had 61 detainees in jails and none in police stations. “Today there are 2,450, which represents a 4,000% increase in the number of prisoners held in local facilities,” they added.

“ With the new national administration, far from being resolved, the problem has worsened. Alberto Fernández's government left a total of 1,796 prisoners in the City. Today that number is 2,468, and continues to increase. In addition, in March 2020, the City had 183 places for detainees, in no case with a stay time of more than 48 hours. Today there are almost 1,300 places,” Tapia described.