Crime and Violence in Latin America: Citizen Security, Democracy, and the State (Woodrow Wilson Center Press)

By virtually any standard of measurement, Latin America ranks as one of the most violent regions in the world. Violence and crime pose serious threats to the relatively fragile democracies of Latin America and the Caribbean. This volume 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 these threats.

Because the experiences of the countries in the region vary greatly, the book focuses on citizen security from a variety of perspectives. The first part examines the predominant themes of citizen security, which include efforts to reform the criminal justice system, separate the police from the military, create public and social policies decreasing violence, and raise money to finance such efforts. The second part presents case studies exploring experiences in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Central America, and the Caribbean. In the final part, the editors offer specific policy recommendations based on the foregoing analyses.

This book contributes the most detailed discussion of reform efforts to date, with special attention to police-community partnerships and police professionalization programs. Although complete evaluation of these relatively new programs is impossible, the contributors discuss lessons thus far and offer recommendations for governments, civil society, and the international community. Policy makers, analysts, and students of public policy, sociology, Latin American studies, and law will benefit from this book.

Contributors: Carlos Basombrío, Mayra Buvinic, Paul Chevigny, Laura Chinchilla, Mauricio Duce, H. Hugo Frühling, Heather A. Golding, Adriana Loche, Anthony P. Maingot, Andrew Morrison, Paulo de Mesquita Neto, Rogelio Pérez Perdomo, Michael Shifter, Catalina Smulovitz, and Joseph S. Tulchin.