Democracies without Citizenship: Crime and Punishment in Latin America

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how, despite the political and economic reforms of the last three decades, which have embraced the ideals of free markets and democracy, social and economic exclusion, as well as authoritarianism, are still the main features of most of Latin American societies. For this reason, they may be considered democracies without citizenship. The article focuses on the impact that these features have had on the configuration of Latin American crime control fields, which in most cases are highly punitive. It also discusses how Latin American crime control fields have contributed in turn to the advancement of such reforms.

Postneoliberalism and Penality in South America: By Way of Introduction

“…Even though similar growth trends can be observed in other global regions during this period the degree to which it occurred in South America was has been extraordinary. 17 IJCJ&SD 135 Online version via www.crimejusticejournal.com © 2017 6(1) This punitive turn in South America has been associated in the emerging sociology of punishment literature in the region with the ascendance since the 1970s of neoliberalism as a transnational political project (Iturralde 2010(Iturralde , 2012(Iturralde , 2014Muller 2011). This interpretation is based essentially on the appropriation of Loic Wacquant's argument, developed to think about the case of the United States, but extended also to understand the penal present in Europe -particularly in France -by means of the identification of an import process of penal discourses and practices which previously has been generated in this scenario, that contributed to the construction of a 'neoliberal penality' (Wacquant 2000(Wacquant , 2005(Wacquant , 2010(Wacquant , 2013.…”

“…This complex process is generally viewed to be more radical and extreme in the context of South America than in the global North, because it progressed from an already highly fragmented social landscape that was characterized by high levels of poverty, unemployment, inequality and street crime, especially violent crime (Iturralde 2010(Iturralde , 2012. This focus can also be observed in an article written by the same Wacquant about Brazil in 2003, in which he diagnosed the emergence of a 'dictatorship over the poor' through the expansion of the Penal State in that context (Wacquant 2003: 198;see also Muller 2011;Wacquant 2008 dynamics of the imported 'Made in the USA' discourses and practices are recognised for the South American scenarios within this interpretation (Muller 2011: 5), not only from the 'zero tolerance' policing model to the accusatory model in criminal proceedings, but also the presence of endogenous processes that are inscribed in peculiar historical trajectories (Iturralde 2012).…”

Colombian prisons as a core institution of authoritarian liberalism

“…On the other hand, countries like Colombia, México, Perú, and El Salvador have been led mostly by right-wing governments with a neoliberal tendency and a with a political and economic interest in having close ties with the United States. At the centre of the political spectrum there are countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile that have been ruled by leftist governments that have accepted market capitalism rules and principles as part of their political and economic agenda [37].…”

“…American crime control fields 6 are needed in order to assess the similarities of these fields (such as high crime -and particularly homicide-rates, increasing imprisonment rates, the hardening of criminal policies), how they came into being, their connections, as well as an explanation of their differences and divergent trajectories [37].…”

(Re)Shaping the Neoliberal Leviathans: the Politics of Penality and Welfare in Argentina, Chile and Peru

“…Despite a growing literature that confirms the development within neoliberalism of an expanded penal state, with harsher policing, criminal sanctions and higher imprisonment rates (Godoy 2005;Auyero 2010;Iturralde 2010;Muller 2012) along a focalized welfare (Kaufman and Segura-Ubiergo 2001;Svampa 2005) targeting the urban poor, few attempts have been made to explain variations in penal and welfare statecraft within Latin America as related to broader political transformations. A rich literature remains focused on the micro-level issues of criminal justice or welfare reform.…”