Postneoliberalism and Penality in South America: By Way of Introduction

Abstract

In the last two decades, there has been an extraordinary growth in incarceration rates in South America, with some variations across national contexts but generally in line with the same trend. Twenty years ago, incarceration rates were relatively low in most countries in the region; despite that knowledge, it has proved difficult to reconstruct the official data for that period. In 1992, with the exclusion of the small countries with less than one million inhabitants in the Northern region of South America such as Guyana, French Guyana and Surinam, only three countries had 100 prisoners or more per 100,000 inhabitants: Uruguay (100), Venezuela (133) and Chile (154) (see Figure 1). Several other national contexts reflected ‘Scandinavian’ rates, such as Argentina (62), Peru (69), Ecuador (75) and Brazil (74).
 Download the PDF file to continue with this introduction to the articles in the dossier within this issue of the journal.

Peculiar responsibilization? Exploring a governing strategy in an atypical prison in the Global South

“…The Punta de Rieles experience was shaped in a political and cultural climate defined by the ascent of the “Frente Amplio”, a “post-neoliberal” governmental alliance and program (Sozzo, 2017, 2018) that began with the presidency of Tabaré Vazquez in 2005, and that has tried to generate changes regarding the former dissemination of neoliberal logics in economic and social policies in this national context. The first government of the “Frente Amplio” began a process of reform of the penitentiary system through the enactment of the “Prison System Humanization and Modernization Act” in 2005.…”

“…We will argue that it is a case of loose, informal and lay responsibilization that could coexist with some collectivizing and mutual aid mechanisms. We will show how these features are linked to certain structural characteristics of incarceration that are commonly seen in many regions of the Global South, but also to broader political and cultural developments that have recently taken place specifically in some Latin-American contexts as a result of the rise of post-neoliberal governmental alliances and programs (Sozzo, 2017, 2018).…”

Inequality, welfare and punishment. Comparative notes between the Global North and South

“…This series of political and cultural dynamics and processes, ‘proximate’ rather than ‘deep’, is crucial to understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of this increase in punitiveness at the regional level. And, in turn, they are difficult to capture through the analysis of statistical indicators, even if of a sophisticated nature (Fonseca, 2018; Iturralde, 2019, 2021; Miller, 2021; Sozzo, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018b; Wilenmann, 2020). 16 From my perspective, only inquiries that could address simultaneously these two interrelated theoretical and methodological requirements would be capable of addressing the different paradoxes that emerged from this first attempt to ‘southernize’ the debate on welfare, inequality and punishment.…”

Social Representations of Homicide Investigations by Judges, Prosecutors and Police: A Case Study from the Metropolitan Area of Brasilia

“…Cifali and de Azevedo (2017: 46) have specifically examined 'why efforts to build an effective public security policy committed to upholding civil rights and improving the control of police and police activities have failed' during the period of re-democratisation in Brazil. The rise of penal populism across Latin America during this period has filled jails but failed to reduce violent crimes (Sozzo 2017). In this article, we examine why this is the case in the Metropolitan Area of Brasilia (MAB), drawing on original research conducted with nodes of elite actors in the criminal justice system-police, prosecutors and judges.…”