Abstract
Modernity has played a significant role in shaping “the city” as we know it today. From the massive urban changes that came about from immigration to the widespread implementation of technology such as cars and radios, modernity in the 1920s and 1930s allowed many Western cities to break away from their traditional ways in favor of a faster and more ambitious urban experience. In While the City Sleeps, Caimari provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of the turn to modernity in Buenos Aires in the decade of 1920s–1930s, as illustrated by the relationship between crime, the police, the media, and the city’s growth.
Caimari makes the argument that following the turn to modernity, crime became synonymous with social disorder, and as such, it also became the general outlet for citizens to expel any social anxieties emerging from the rapid changes in the city. Buenos Aires was growing fast in terms of its population and structure, and technology was now more pervasive and connected people to places they had no access to before, all of which created a public sense of volatility. The book includes discussions on the links between crime and political corruption as well as political decadence, which during that time left the city’s institutions ill-equipped to fulfill the demands of the public. With the turn to modernity and the city’s rapid growth, crime in Buenos Aires essentially became the poster child for the city’s perceived moral decline, and the police became the main source of accountability, categorically assigned with the emblematic task of abolishing any traces of moral decline and disorder.
The first chapters of the book focus on the contextual developments that led to the major changes in the city. Special attention is given to the widespread use of the car and the role it played in creating a new “brand” of criminal: the pistolero, as well as the main actors who contributed to the reinforcement of these changes, namely the police and various media outlets such as specialized crime magazines and newspapers. The influence of Hollywood and American entertainment is not forgotten in the discussion, intuitively connecting the emergence of pistoleros to the popularity of gangster films at the time. Caimari then provides a detailed overview of the progression of pistolero crime and how it related to the media throughout its existence. Analyzing a range of media outlets and magazines, Caimari effectively links the expansion of the city and crime, to public perceptions of both disorder and the efficiency of the police. As technology reached crime and criminals faster than it did the police, citizens’ perceptions of the city and crime control efforts were influenced and shaped accordingly.
In the following chapters, Caimari offers a more detailed discussion of the challenges the police faced in changing its image and catching up to the new crime methodologies during a time of economic crises and urban expansion. At the backdrop of this argument lies the unmistakable shift in the public’s interest that went from the nature and causes of crime to the methods and execution of criminal activity. This provided further challenges to the police’s ability to respond to the demands of the public, and subsequently to the confidence it received from the public. The importance of some of the city’s developments, such as the bajo fondo (or the slumps) is highlighted along with the sinusoidal relationship between the police and its representation in the media during this time. The book further examines the ways the police devised to tackle the main issues related to their institutional identity and social legitimacy, as one of the consequences of modernity was also the greater gap created between the police institution and civil society. As Caimari assertively notes, “in times of social harmony, the picture of a policeman as micro-manager of neighborhood conflict consolidated the notion that good police discretion is often better than impersonal law-enforcement” (p. 190).
The urban expansion in the 1920s and 1930s places Buenos Aires in a context of change that was particularly enveloped by the ripple effects of a major economic crisis. Throughout the book, Caimari repeatedly touches on themes of immigration, urbanization, technological advances, and the gaps between social classes. These themes are then successfully linked to the rapid nature of the turn to modernity that followed the economic crisis, pointing out its impact on crime and the institutions meant to control it. The addition of all of these themes allows the reader to construct a full picture of the context in which these analyses take place, further understanding the conditions under which the police had to operate and the challenges that had to be faced to reestablish the institution.
While the City Sleeps gives the reader a fresh, insider look at the social changes in Buenos Aires in the 1920s and 1930s, which commendably goes beyond the information available from statistics and reports. Caimari gives the reader a space to get more intimate with the reality of what it meant to be a police officer during a defiant period riddled with fast changes. There are also opportunities for the reader to become acquainted with the close relationship between public opinion and the media, as illustrated by a trajectory between public perceptions of crime control institutions and their portrayal in the press that often traveled in-tandem. Overall, Caimari provides a complete, extensive, and rich read that leaves no information of that period behind. Although this book is more of a snapshot, covering a specific and limited time-period, While the City Sleeps gives the reader an in-depth historical account of some of the ways in which modernity shaped the city and its crime control institutions. Caimari further gives an account of how these events went on to shape a whole host of social and civic practices in turn. This book is ideal for readers and scholars interested in all aspects of early 20th-century crime, the police, and its representation in the media in Latin America.