Entre la improvisación y la carrera laboral. Las reformas policiales en el Territorio Nacional de La Pampa (Argentina, 1920-1933).

Abstract

During the period between 1920 and 1933, the police force in the National Territory of La Pampa (Argentina) implemented various reforms in order to consolidate a professional career based on professionalization and the regulation of recruitment, training and creation of rank. Within the framework of the National Public Service streamlining, the institution proposed a filtration of its ineffective parts and an elimination not only of informality but also of favoritism as an access way. This article analyzes and characterizes the repercussions of these efforts as limitations from an institutional and social perspective. In the first place, this view allows for the reparation of the partial result of accuracy goals in selection, maintenance and sanitation of police officers. In the second place, it observes a heterogeneity process in career paths which gradually ceased to understand police work as a circumstantial occupation. Service records constitute the main source of documentation consulted for this article.