This article provides a comparative reconstruction of the debate on the Chilean institutional crisis in the national social sciences and in legal scholarship. In this regard, even though the critical effects of the transition to democracy (as well as the multiple indicators of social unrest) have been studied in the social sciences since the return of democracy, the Chilean institutional crisis has only been subject to sporadic analyses in the field of law. Accordingly, this article shows the evolution of the central characteristics of the debate in two areas and urges for greater debate and dialogue in the legal sciences. In their absence, their transdisciplinary effects will become unnoticed, and the same will occur regarding the content and functioning of other social science disciplines.

This article builds a developmental model of probation evolution based on the dynamics generated by its feedback effects, illustrating its claims through a case study of Chile's recent probation politics. The article posits that probation emerges out of the negative infrastructural and political feedback effects of the prison. As probation generalises, it creates its own growing negative political feedback. In time, the field can enter a state that we label the politics of probation, providing for substantial political conflict and fluctuance. The article shows how different actors mediate in the conflict around the politics of probation.