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Throughout the last three decades, almost all Latin American countries witnessed a dramatic growth of their inmate population that is indicative of the rebirth of the prison in the region. This article contextualizes the rebirth of the prison in contemporary Latin America in empirical and theoretical terms. To this end, it offers a discussion of the expansion of Latin American imprisonment, changes in the region?s prison regimes and their embeddedness within wider social and economic contexts, as well as of the impact of institutional histories, larger economic and political transformation processes and globally circulating penal ideas and institutional models, all of which contribute to the growing punitiveness of contemporary Latin America states and politics. Fil: Hathazy, Paul Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina Fil: Müller, Markus-Michael. Universität zu Berlin; Alemania more...

This article explains the evolution of prison policies in Argentina and Chile after the dual transition to neoliberalism and democracy addressing in particular the renewal of correctionalist prison rationalities propelled by human rights and managerialism expertise, their specific articulations and the differential institutionalization in the state. Going beyond objectivist descriptions of prison expansion, I delve into the emergence of a new symbolic order in democratic times that prompted the unexpected revival of rehabilitation programs and increased formalization of prisons regimes and account for their progressive subordination to security priorities. To explain these particular evolutions that contradict predictions of a direct drift toward a purely warehousing prison with greater informality under neoliberalism in Latin America, I engage in a comparative field analysis, analyzing the structure and dynamics within what I call carceral fields to account for the introduction of new rationalities and for their differential institutionalization in prison bureaucracies. After presenting the concept of carceral field and reviewing alternative accounts of prison change in Latin America, I show that the emergence of these rationalities follow the entrance of new experts within the field in democratic times, and account for their differential incorporation in prison policies and regimes analyzing how the interests of prison officers and political agents and increasing overcrowding conditioned the experts’ strategies. This study, based on documentary evidence and interview data, demonstrates that these new legal and economic rationalities do not oppose drifts toward populist punitivism, but give it a progressive face, legitimating punitive policies while providing new power resources to elite prison administrators. Fil: Hathazy, Paul Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina more...

Going beyond general depictions of convergence in penal and welfare policies targeted to manage the urban poor and the flexibilized working class in neoliberal regimes of Latin America, I address the political causes behind the distinct penal and welfare policies developed in Argentina, Chile and Peru since their neoliberal turn. To explain the initial differences of penal and welfare regimes among these cases and their evolution, I integrate Harvey’s and Wacquant’s perspectives on state policies under neoliberalism and complement them with an analysis of local political conditions and processes, following Portes. The differences in penal and welfare policies in each country result initially from the political regime that governed the transition to neoliberalism – authoritarian, semi-authoritarian or democratic. Their consolidation or modification resulted from the organizational features (technocratic or neo-populist) of the political parties that governed the aftermath of transition to neoliberalism and from the different reactions of marginalized urban sectors to neoliberal adjustments and policies. Resumen: (Re)modelando a los leviatanes neoliberales: la politica penal y social en Argentina, Chile y Peru Mas alla de las descripciones generales de la convergencia entre las politicas penales y sociales dirigidas a los pobres urbanos y a la clase obrera flexibilizada en los regimenes neoliberales de Latinoamerica, yo abordo las causas politicas que se esconden tras las distintas politicas penales y sociales elaboradas en Argentina, Chile y Peru desde su giro neoliberal. Para explicar las diferencias iniciales entre los regimenes penales y sociales de estos paises y su evolucion, integro las perspectivas de Harvey y Wacquant sobre las politicas estatales bajo el neoliberalismo y las complemento con un analisis de las condiciones y los procesos politicos locales, de acuerdo con Portes. Las diferencias entre las politicas penales y sociales en cada pais radican inicialmente en el regimen politico que goberno en la transicion hacia el neoliberalismo – autoritario, semiautoritario o democratico. Su consolidacion o modificacion fue el resultado de las caracteristicas organizativas (tecnocratas o neopopulistas) de los partidos politicos que gobernaron despues de la transicion al neoliberalismo y de las distintas reacciones de los sectores urbanos marginados ante los ajustes y las politicas neoliberales. Palabras clave: neoliberalismo, penal, politicas de bienestar, partidos, movilizacion urbana, Peru, Argentina, Chile. more...

Abstract Through a comparative field analysis, I explain why, after being subjected to the same reform projects and rationalities in the democratic period, police bureaucracies changed in Chile but remained unchanged in Argentina. In doing so I advance a field theory account of police bureaucratic change that (a) overcomes the limitations of Late-modern, Post-modern and Governmentality theories of police change, and (b) emphasizes positionality, agency and a plurality of interests in processes of administrative change. I demonstrate that the proliferation of new experts and their reconversion strategies within the field led to the emergence of specific demands for reform while the historical structures and location of the policing field and the outcomes of struggles within them determined the differential evolution of police organizations in democratic times. more...

This article assesses the causes of the crisis of detention in Latin America. It is argued that this crisis, which manifests itself in overpopulation of the region's prison systems, deficient infrastructure, prison informality and violence propelled ultimately by political processes, is mostly related to, on the one hand, disastrous human rights conditions inside Latin American prisons, and on other, the political denial of these conditions. This denial produces a state of institutional abandonment that is preserved by the interests of politicians and bureaucrats, who are engaged in denying prison violence and human rights abuses while simultaneously calling for more punishment and imprisonment. Fil: Hathazy, Paul Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina Fil: Müller, Markus Michael. Freie Universität Berlin; Alemania more...

En este trabajo explico los cambios organizaciones en las policías de Chile en la primera década de democracia. Teniendo en cuenta el sistema de fuerzas policiales y el complejo de agentes que conforman lo que llamo, siguiendo la teoría de campos de Bourdieu, el campo policial, aquí analizo como, en la primer década de democracia se gestó un nuevo consenso sobre las funciones policiales y como se institucionalizó en nuevas doctrinas y modos de despliegue de las policías de Chile, Carabineros de Chile y la Policía de Investigaciones. Analizo el origen de las demandas de cambio y el modo en que las estructuras históricas de relaciones entre agentes políticos e instituciones policiales y las luchas al interior del campo policial llevaron a la transformación doctrinal y organizacional de ambas fuerzas. Distintos mecanismos produjeron el cambio en cada organización policial en línea con la nueva ortodoxia democrática en función de las distintas posiciones de cada fuerza en el campo y de sus distintas relaciones de autonomía respecto del poder ejecutivo. In this paper I explain the changes in the police organizations of Chile in the first decade of democracy. Given the system of police forces and the complex of agents that make up what I call, following Bourdieu’s field theory, the policing field, I discuss how in the first decade of democracy a new consensus on policing was constructed and then institutionalized in new doctrines and modes of deployment by the police forces of Chile, the Carabineros and the Investigations Police. I analyze the origin of the demands for change and how historic structures of relations between political agents and police institutions and police struggles within the field led to the doctrinal and organizational transformation of both police forces. Depending on the different positions in the police field of each force and its different relations of autonomy from the executive branch, different combinations of mechanisms produced the change in each police organization in line with the new democratic orthodoxy. Fil: Hathazy, Paul Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina more...

This article dissects the role of culture in securing authority relations within a militarized police apparatus. Adding structure and power to the symbolic interactionist approach to organizational culture and interests and positionality to the structural functionalist perspective on militarized organizations, the author examines how, through the preservation and imposition of a sacralized worldview and morality (symbolic violence), police officers – the commanding caste of a two-tiered type of police organization – manage to charismatically legitimate the internal distribution of authority and its exercise in the relations between commanding officers and the non-commissioned officers, turning sheer bureaucratic authority into charismatic power (symbolic power). The author draws on ethnographic observations, interview data, and a structural-semantic analysis to reconstruct the system of beliefs involved and to describe the practices and mechanisms through which intra-bureaucratic domination is charismatically legitimated and made effective. These processes are examined both in everyday relations of command and in the extraordinary event of a police mutiny. more...