Osvaldo Barreneche: Buenos Aires Justice sku-52851074

Osvaldo Barreneche’s hardcover Crime and the Administration of Justice in Buenos Aires, 1785-1853 is listed under Latin American History Books (sku-52851074). Using Buenos Aires as a case study, it traces the formation of Argentina’s postcolonial criminal justice system from the installation of the second Audiencia, the superior tribunal of the Río de la Plata viceroyalty, in 1785 to the national constitution of 1853, which began a new phase of interregional organization and codification.

Barreneche examines the judiciary’s institutional subordination, police interference with its relationship to civil society, senior officers’ manipulation of early judicial proceedings, and the use of flexible penal procedures to punish people regardless of case outcomes.

His analysis of criminal cases also considers differing interpretations of liberalism, changes in the roles of police and the military, and the institutionalization of education in debates over penal reform. The book relates this history to the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism in modern Argentina.