25 records,” which then became “detentions to verify identity,” as well as “detentions based on police edicts on misdemeanors or police codes on minor offenses.” The term razzia means “a military incursion, a violent surprise attack on foreign territory” with the aim of despoiling; it comes from Algerian Arabic, and entered the French language in 1840, when France began its colonial campaign in Algeria. Currently the term razzia is applied to surprise police operations the objective of which is to surround a property, a town, a street, a rock concert, a neighborhood; to restrict the movements of those caught within this encircling action, forcing them to get onto police vehicles or collective public transportation and take them to police territory, generally to police stations. Razzias can be directed toward population groups regardless of their sex, age, or occupation, or toward sects, youths, or sexual minorities. In the specific case of Argentina, the sectors affected most by this type of “razzias” are the younger, poor and working-class sectors. During these procedures, “[individuals] are dispossessed of their fundamental rights” and, therefore, there is a process of dehumanization, where the police “demand obedience, unlimited compliance with orders and yelling [...], submission and subservience.” In these police procedures there are several inconvenient aspects, including the fact that judicial control is usually belated or even non-existent. In the case of detentions to verify identities, the police generally submit to the judge, belatedly, a list of persons detained, stating as causes for detention: “loitering,” “wandering aimlessly,” “window watching;” and the time of entry and release of the detainees at the police station is not always stated, nor is their domicile. The judges conduct an “almost administrative” control of police detention, as this function has been entrusted to the correctional judges, who have the largest number of ongoing cases and the least structure within the Argentine Judiciary, for which reason it is utterly impossible to effectively control roughly 100,000 to 150,000 monthly detentions in the city of Buenos Aires. On the rare occasions when a judge has effectively controlled said detentions, the Office of the General Director of Police Stations of the Federal Police orders that “once a detention takes place, the detainee should be informed of his or her rights [...] and the judge should be informed immediately,” with which the number of detentions declines. There is no direct relationship between these practices and effectiveness of protection of citizen security. The police arrest large numbers of persons jointly or individually, and it is only at the police station that they are “classified” as adults, youths, women, men. Said massive detentions take place under the a priori definition that there are certain persons who, according to the social defense program, per se may commit crimes. However, according to investigations carried out only 0.2% of the persons detained through these practices have arrest warrants. Three main reasons give rise to these police practices: first, “repressive and disciplinary control of population groups,” with the aim of setting an example for poor, working-class and youth sectors, under the ideology of a dangerous state without crime; second, these detentions are part of bureaucratic police work with the dual aim of showing supervisors that they are working, and of responding to pressure by the media or by certain sectors demanding greater security; and third, they exercise control that allows them to establish minor unlawful activities, peddling, prostitution and other occupations of the poor, and also to charge fees in exchange for permits to practice those occupations, thus contributing to the so-called “petty cash” of the police force.