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From a decolonial perspective, and taking Latin America as its case study, this article discusses southern criminology --a body of work that has consolidated in the region and other Global South countries, and that aims at explaining crime and violence, together with the social control responses they elicit, as part of the colonial matrix of power. The article claims that southern criminology has the potential to contribute to the discussion of crime, violence, and social control in Latin America in at least two aspects: first, it may provide an incisive analysis of the relations between different forms of violence and subordination, on the one hand, and the punitive and exclusive responses of Latin American political regimes to these phenomena, on the other. Second, it may contribute a suggestive explanation of how the forms of social control that have emerged in different countries of the region since their birth as independent republics are closely linked to the construction of political, economic, and social orders that are part of the colonial matrix of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En los últimos veinte años, las fuentes judiciales se han transformado en un recurso clave para la historia latinoamericana. El trabajo reconstruye, desde una perspectiva historiográfica, los diversos caminos por los que se consolidaron los estudios sobre el delito, el castigo y los actores que se involucran en América Latina, dando cuenta de los diversos modos de abordaje, las inquietudes teóricas y las fuentes que caracterizan el área. A su vez, se reflexiona sobre la centralidad de tales estudios para comprender el carácter histórico y contingente de los fenómenos de criminalización y de las estrategias para mantener el orden social.