Inequality, Crime, and Security in Argentina (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
This article proposes that the groundbreaking concept of “criminal selectivity” (Zaffaroni 2000, 2011, 2011b), not yet extensively used in the English literature, could benefit from a critical conceptualization and operationalization. The hope is that the resulting tools might facilitate the identification of the unfairness patterns and the subsequent transformation of the criminal justice system unequal functioning. To do so, this contribution will explore the framework of the notion of criminal selectivity to later describe how it displays at the two stages of the criminal justice process, i.e., primary and secondary criminalization. On the one hand, “primary criminalization” involves the enactment of statutes by legislators and the executive power. On the other hand, “secondary criminalization” encompasses the enforcement of the law by police officers; the court process by prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, and juries; and the administration of punishment by correctional officers or parole boards. As none of these instances can possibly hold all the possible negative social behaviors accountable, an inquiry arises: what are the criteria to criminalize some behaviors and not others? Digging into this question, the article will provide some conceptual precision in relation to the mechanisms through which criminal selectivity operates. It will be argued that this filtering process works disregarding some behaviors and actors (under-criminalization) and focusing on others (over-criminalization) and that this different attitude responds to socio-economic grounds rather than to the involved social harm. Finally, building upon the described conceptual tools, the article analyzes the criminal justice system in Argentina. To cite this work/Para citar este trabajo: Vegh Weis, Valeria “Operationalizing Injustice. Criminal Selectivity as a Tool for Understanding (and Changing) Criminalization in Argentina”, Criminological Encounters, v. 4, n.1, 2021, pp. 13-30.
Latin American Crime and the Issue of Inequality*
Ibero Americana, 2000
Crime is an increasingly worrying social phenomenon in the developing world in general, and in Latin America in particular. As shown in Figure 1 ‡ , the crime rate (measured by homicide/100 000, as reported to the UN crime surveys by national police authorities) has virtually exploded since mid 1980s in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe. Latin America clearly stands out as an exceptional case. Annually in Latin America, approximately 140 000 people are murdered (Londoño and Guerrero 1999:27). Using other sources does not really change this picture. Figure 2 confirms the exceptional position of Latin America, where the source in mortality statistics is collected from national health authorities instead of the police. Indicators of crime other than homicide are less reliable for international comparison, but estimates point in the direction of Latin America being way above the average for any other region of the world (Bourguignon 1999, Table 1). It has been estimated that 28 million Latin American families are victims of theft or robbery every year (Londoño and Guerrero 1999:3). Crime and violence are now viewed as a development issue of importance, which was probably not the case two decades ago. Development agencies such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have quite recently initiated ambitious research projects on crime and violence. Projects directed to the judicial system or police authorities have increased their share in the project portfolio of multilateral as well as bilateral development cooperation agencies. More importantly, crime is becoming a major concern in the daily life of an increasing number of citizens in the developing world, manifesting itself in national political agendas, in higher crime related expenditures and, not the least, in human suffering.
Determinants of the crime rate in Argentina during the '90s
2000
Based on Becker's theoretical model, the present paper estimates econometrically the determinants of the crime rate in Argentina for the 1990-1999 period. Like previous empirical applications for Argentina, a significant deterrence effect was found. However unlike them we find a strong socio-economic effect on the crime rate. The unemployment rate and the income inequality indicator were found to have a positive and significant effects on the crime rate.
Non-criminal murders: A sociological essay about the use of self-defence in Argentina
Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 2021
Abstract: This article seeks to examine the use of the figure of self-defence in the practices of the Buenos Aires criminal justice system. As we will show with the analysis of some paradigmatic cases, through the use of this figure of exception, this criminal justice system produces certain murders as non-criminal acts to, paradoxically, safeguard individual life as a hegemonic value. Moreover, we will observe that the use of this legal figure reveals that certain killings to protect private property may not have a criminal character either. This in turn suggests that private property is also a hegemonic value for this criminal justice system, and that the alleged supremacy of individual life over private property in its value scale should be at least questioned. Resumen: Este artículo se propone examinar el uso de la figura de la legítima defensa en las prácticas de la justicia penal de Buenos Aires. Como mostraremos con el análisis de algunos casos paradigmáticos, a través del uso de esta figura de excepción, esta justicia penal produce ciertas muertes como actos no-criminales a fin de, paradójicamente, proteger la vida individual como valor hegemónico. Asimismo, veremos que el uso de esta figura jurídica revela que ciertos asesinatos para proteger la propiedad privada pueden no tener tampoco un carácter criminal. Esto a su vez sugiere que la propiedad privada es también un valor hegemónico para esta justicia penal, y que la pretendida supremacía de la vida individual sobre la propiedad privada en su escala de valores debe ser, al menos, cuestionada.
Transition to Democracy and Penal Policy The Case of Argentina
This essay aims at examining the development of penal policy in Argentina during the first stage of the transition to democracy. It analyzes the emergence of an elitist mode of penal policy making, which isolated and protected it from the public and persisted beyond changes in governmental alliances. It also shows how penal policy had initially in that context a liberal orientation that became more ambivalent since the 1990s, including measures towards the increase of penal severity and extension. As well, it explores the conditions of possibility of this mode of penal policy making and its changing orientations and its effects in the evolution of punitiveness in this period. This study of a national case could be useful for advancing our understanding of how this complex political and social change is connected with the field of punishment and could be an initial contribution to a line of comparative research about this relation in other contexts that experienced recent similar transformations.
Differential penalization of murder. A sociological examination of the Argentinean case
Espacio Abierto. Cuaderno Venezolano de Sociología, 2020
Differential administration of punishment is a relevant political and social issue for it is a clear indicator of the criminal system's selectivity. This relevance is even greater when referring to murder: considered the most serious of all crimes, its punishment entails moral concerns to every society. Paradoxically, this problem has not been very much investigated in Ar-gentina and in Latin America in general, even when it is one of the regions with the highest homicide rates of the world. The present article seeks to provide some empirical analyses on differential penalization of murder in contemporary Argentina in order to contribute to this field of study. Using data from the most recent penitentiary census of the country (correspon-ding to 2018) we examine differential administration of punishment regarding the offender's gender, age, nationality, social class and criminal career. We analyse to what extent these variables impact in the probability of getting lifelong imprisonment and in the length of the sentences imposed by judges. Our study shows that women are more likely to get harsher punishments than men, and that defendants with higher levels of education have been punished more severely than those with no studies at all.
Crime victimization and income distribution
Crime levels have risen significantly in Argentina during recent years. In this study, we analyze the relationship between crime victimization and income distribution. Our main question is whether the rich or the poor have been the main victims of this crime rise. For home robberies, we found that the poor have suffered the main crime increases. For street robberies, both groups show similar augments in victimization. The findings are consistent with additional evidence showing that the rich are able to protect their houses through pecuniary security devices better than the poor. We find no differences in reporting rates and access to justice by social groups.
Punishment, Democracy and Transitional Justice in Argentina (1983-2015)
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2017
Latin America has neither suffered the majority of mass atrocities in the contemporary world nor the worst of them but, after a sustained period of transition to democracy, it holds the record for the most domestic trials for human rights abuses. Argentina is an emblematic case in Latin America and the world. Due to the early development of its human rights trials, their social impact and their scale, it has a leading role in what is known as ‘the justice cascade’. Until recently, leading scholars in sociology of punishment have studied the penality of ‘ordinary crimes’ through causally deep and global narratives largely from the perspective of the Global North. State crimes and regional paths of transitional justice have been neglected in their accounts. This paper will question this state of affairs – or ‘parallelism’ – through an exploration of the punishment of both ‘common crimes’ and ‘state crimes’ in Argentina, thus contributing to the growing body of scholarship on southern ...