Fear And Crime In Latin America

The feeling of insecurity is a little known phenomenon that has been only partially explored by social sciences. However, it has a deep social, cultural and economic impact and may even contribute to define the very structures of the state. In Latin America, fear of crime has become an important stumbling block in the region's process of democratization. Lucía Dammert proposes a unique theoretical perspective which includes a sociological, criminological and political analysis to understand fear of crime.

The feeling of insecurity is a little known phenomenon that has been only partially explored by social sciences. However, it has a deep social, cultural and economic impact and may even contribute to define the very structures of the state. In Latin America, fear of crime has become an important stumbling block in the region’s process of democratization. After long spells of dictatorships and civil wars, violence in the region was supposed to be under control yet crime rates have continued to skyrocket and citizens remain fearful. This analytical puzzle has troubled researchers and to date there is no publication which explores this problem. Based on a wealth of cutting edge qualitative and quantitative research, Lucía Dammert proposes a unique theoretical perspective which includes a sociological, criminological and political analysis to understand fear of crime. She describes its linkages to issues such as urban segregation, social attitudes, institutional trust, public policies and authoritarian discourses in Chile’s recent past. Looking beyond Chile, Dammert also includes a regional comparative perspective allowing readers to understand the complex elements underpinning this situation. Fear and Crime in Latin America challenges many assumptions and opens an opportunity to discuss an issue that affects everyone with key societal and personal costs. As crime rates increase and states become even more fragile, fear of crime as a social problem will continue to have an important impact in Latin America.

Citizens in Latin American cities live in constant fear, amidst some of the most dangerous conditions on earth. In that vast region, 140 thousand people die violently each year, and one out of three citizens have been directly or indirectly victimized by violence. Citizens of Fear, in part, assembles survey results of social scientists who document the pervasiveness of violence. But the numbers tell only part of the story.

Offers timely discussion by attorneys, government officials, policy analysts, and academics from the United States and Latin America of the responses of the state, civil society, and the international community to threats of violence and crime.

The sociology of Latin America, established in the region over the past eighty years, is a thriving field whose major contributions include dependence theory, world-systems theory, and historical debates on economic development, among others. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Latin America provides research essays that introduce the readers to the discipline's key areas and current trends, specifically with regard to contemporary sociology in Latin America, as well as a collection of innovative empirical studies deploying a variety of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The essays in the Handbook are arranged in eight research subfields in which scholars are currently making significant theoretical and methodological contributions: Sociology of the State, Social Inequalities, Sociology of Religion, Collective Action and Social Movements, Sociology of Migration, Sociology of Gender, Medical Sociology, and Sociology of Violence and Insecurity. Due to the deterioration of social and economic conditions, as well as recent disruptions to an already tense political environment, these have become some of the most productive and important fields in Latin American sociology. This roiling sociopolitical atmosphere also generates new and innovative expressions of protest and survival, which are being explored by sociologists across different continents today. The essays included in this collection offer a map to and a thematic articulation of central sociological debates that make it a critical resource for those scholars and students eager to understand contemporary sociology in Latin America.

"A genuinely interdisciplinary work . . . the best attempt I have ever seen at a truly unified intellectuals' approach to an important issue."—Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Georgetown University "Very seldom does a collected volume achieve the academic quality and internal coherence that one sees in this case. It is a major contribution to comparative research on post-authoritarian situations."—Carlos Waisman, University of California, San Diego

According to media reports, Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world—a distinction it held throughout the twentieth century. The authors of Violence and Crime in Latin America contend that perceptions and representations of violence and crime directly impact such behaviors, creating profound consequences for the political and social fabric of Latin American nations. Written by distinguished scholars of Latin American history, sociology, anthropology, and political science, the essays in this volume range from Mexico and Argentina to Colombia and Brazil in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing such issues as extralegal violence in Mexico, the myth of indigenous criminality in Guatemala, and governments’ selective blindness to violent crime in Brazil and Jamaica. The authors in this collection examine not only the social construction and political visibility of violence and crime in Latin America, but the justifications for them as well. Analytically and historically, these essays show how Latin American citizens have sanctioned criminal and violent practices and incorporated them into social relations, everyday practices, and institutional settings. At the same time, the authors explore the power struggles that inform distinctions between illegitimate versus legitimate violence. Violence and Crime in Latin America makes a substantive contribution to understanding a key problem facing Latin America today. In its historical depth and ethnographic reach, this original and thought-provoking volume enhances our understanding of crime and violence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Crime and violence have emerged in recent years as major obstacles to development objectives in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The paper explicates an agenda for future work that may assist LAC countries by discussing 'policy domains' where action is required. Such domains include reducing urban poverty, targeting efforts on 'at-risk' groups, building or rebuilding social capital, strengthening municipal capacity for combating crime and violence, and reforming the criminal justice system.