La Rioja public safety and police reforms

The province of La Rioja has initiated significant reforms to its public safety and law enforcement structures. The government approved the first Security and Citizen Coexistence Law, which consolidates various regulations into a single framework for crime prevention and control. This legislation establishes a unified leadership model under the Governor and the Minister of Security, Justice, and Human Rights, while reorganizing the provincial police into 14 specialized directorates and implementing decentralized territorial command structures.

In a separate administrative action following these structural shifts, the provincial government expelled two police officers, a principal officer and a corporal, following an investigation into illegal activities. The officers were found to have engaged in habitual and clandestine money lending by seizing bank cards and ATM codes from citizens to enforce usurious interest rates. Authorities characterized these actions as a grave misuse of their official positions.

To further bolster these security efforts, the government has expanded its personnel through the induction of 272 new members from the 2025 class. This cohort includes 217 personnel for the Provincial Police and 55 for the Penitentiary Service, all trained at the Instituto Superior de Formación Integral en Seguridad Pública (ISFISP).

Deployment of the new police officers is distributed across the Capital (85), Chilecito (54), and Chepes (45) to strengthen territorial presence. Governor Ricardo Quintela described the recruitment as a ‘strategic investment rather than an administrative cost,’ emphasizing the need for professionalized personnel to build citizen trust. Minister of Security, Justice, and Human Rights Miguel Ángel Zárate noted that the administration has trained a total of 1,224 individuals for police and penitentiary institutions to date.