From the Operational “Film” to the Judicial “Photo”: Administrative Traceability as a Guarantee of Judicial Control of Institutional Penitentiary Violence

Abstract

This article examines a specific legal-institutional problem: the impact that the quality of prison administrative documentation has on the real possibility of judicially reviewing incidents of institutional violence, use of force, disciplinary sanctions, solitary confinement measures, medical omissions, and other state decisions affecting the fundamental rights of persons deprived of liberty. It argues that administrative traceability is not an accessory requirement of good management, but rather an autonomous legal category and a structural guarantee of the legality of state custody. Its autonomy lies in the fact that it is not exhausted by the duty to state reasons, nor is it reducible to transparency, accountability, or investigative due diligence: it refers, in its own right, to the institutional capacity to produce, preserve, connect, and make available chronological, complete, consistent, and auditable records of events and decisions occurring under confinement. When the custodial system documents events in a delayed, fragmented, vague, or contradictory manner, it does not merely generate deficient files: it undermines the ascertainable truth of the case, weakens the defense, reduces the intensity of judicial review, and increases the risk of institutional impunity. The article reconstructs the applicable constitutional, conventional, and statutory framework; analyzes the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Argentina; and proposes criteria to distinguish traceability from related categories and translate it into verifiable standards of documentation, evidence preservation, interdocumentary consistency, and communication with oversight bodies. On that basis, the article argues that administrative traceability operates as a precondition for legality, contradiction, reviewability, and effective judicial protection in contexts of confinement.