The Social Mind-set Model potentially explains varying societies’ responses to social and criminal behavior

Many countries face similar social issues, but adopt dramatically different solutions. This variation could be because countries have different social mind-sets (SMS), which explain why a certain policy response is adopted. The Social Mind-set Model (“SMS Model”) is a modest addition to the frameworks of Blumer (1971) and Kingdon (2003), who explain how and when the policy process begins. The SMS Model proposes six factors that influence the SMS of a society, which in turn shapes policy processes described by Blumer and Kingdon. These include society’s: 1) high-profile events and social movements, 2) economic-political-legal situation, 3) cultural beliefs and practices, 4) use of research, 5) preference for justice principles, and 6) attributions for behavior. This cross-cultural analysis uses examples from multiple countries. We conclude with a challenge for researchers to continue this line of research, to test the model, to find more model factors and directly test the model’s assumptions.

El renacer de una víctima política: La devolución de la personería jurídica al partido político Unión Patriótica en el contexto de un nuevo derecho electoral de la transición en Colombia (The rebirth of a political victim: The restitution of the legal status to the political party Unión Patriotica in the context of a new transitional electoral law in Colombia)

La devolución a la personería jurídica al partido político Unión Patriótica por parte del máximo órgano de lo contencioso administrativo en Colombia es pionera en materia de reparaciones a sujetos políticos victimizados por razón de su ideología. Pero, ¿Qué motivó esa reparación? ¿Qué posibilidades y límites encarna la tarea de reparar a una colectividad política? El texto que se presenta responde esas preguntas a través de una investigación cualitativa que emplea el estudio de caso y que explora, desde diversas fuentes, cómo ha sido tal proceso. El artículo concluye que, a raíz de la devolución de la personería jurídica a la Unión Patriótica, a través de una decisión judicial del Consejo de Estado, este sujeto político ha renacido reclamando un lugar en el espectro político y erigiéndose en pieza clave de comprensión de un nuevo derecho electoral de la transición en Colombia.

Police performance and violent crime in Rio de Janeiro between 2007 and 2017

Performance-related pay policies applied to the Police have been implemented in Brazil and Latin America since the 2000s in an attempt to reduce the main violent crime indicators. The Integrated Targets System (Sistema Integrado de Metas – SIM), the Pacifying Police Units (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora – UPP) and the Additional Service Regime (Regime Adicional de Serviço – RAS), initiated in the state of Rio de Janeiro in 2009, sought to reduce “strategic state crime indicators” whose results are monitored by the civil police report data. In order to understand how these policies have been implemented in the state of Rio de Janeiro between 2007 and 2017, the study adopts a quantitative approach upon criminal analysis and a qualitative one based on interviews and field observation at civil police stations and military police battalions.

“Places you shouldn't go to”: (Im)mobility, violence and democracy in Brazil and South Africa

Pursuing the broader political effects of the relationship between violence, mobility, and inequality, the article describes some of the grounded political-economies (re)producing social inequalities in Brazil and South Africa, and a discontinuous experience of the urban space. This fragmented spatial experience is produced by the simultaneous operation of a discursive apparatus projecting a split ideal of “city”, and grounded social mechanics, in the intersection of values and power relations. In Johannesburg, South Africa, we’ve described the creation of Maboneng, a “urban development project”, to highlight the role of social mobility and growing class aspirations as powerful political vehicles for neoliberal markets reissuing old apartheid socio-spatial divisions. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we’ve explored the relationship between the State and its margins to understand the production of the milícia as a violent anti-modern capitalist venture, aiming to control the circulation of people, capital and political support in the city.

“Through Roger Matthews' eyes": Glimpses of critical and left realist British criminology

Roger Matthews was a British criminologist renowned as a left realist. He was Professor of Criminology at the University of Kent and was part of the National Deviancy Conference. In this interview, Matthews presented a brief context of the British socio-criminological academia in the 1970’s and on. He showed us the academic network between North American and British academics and the rivalry among them. Afterwards, Matthews talked about his impressions on European and Latin American Criminology. His statements led us to reflect about recent debates in the Brazilian criminological field and alert us of some limits of a marginal criminology.

El abandono de la violencia intrafamiliar ante los tribunales de familia en Chile: Genealogía de un objeto etnográfico

Este artículo analiza el abandono de los procedimientos de violencia intrafamiliar ante los Tribunales de Familia en Chile. Por abandono me refiero a un proceso de exclusión política, institucional y técnica que ha hecho de estos procedimientos judiciales un aspecto problemático de la administración de justicia y, consecuentemente, de la respuesta estatal a la desigualdad de género. El artículo se desprende de una etnografía realizada en dos tribunales de familia chilenos durante el año 2017 y desarrolla una genealogía sobre el fenómeno del abandono a partir de la literatura chilena y la evidencia etnográfica. De esta forma, el artículo da cuenta de la intensidad y complejidad que el abandono de los procedimientos de violencia intrafamiliar manifestaba en la práctica cotidiana de los tribunales de familia. El artículo tiene dos objetivos. Primero, busca responder a un vacío en la literatura relativo a la visibilización y contextualización de los procedimientos de familia en materia de violencia intrafamiliar en Chile. Segundo, se propone destacar a la etnografía legal como una metodología útil para desarrollar una lectura situada y transdiciplinaria sobre la labor judicial.

Prácticas “expertas” de memorialización: El caso del Patio 29 del Cementerio General, Santiago de Chile

El Patio 29 es un dispositivo público de memoria social. Ubicado en el Cementerio General de Santiago de Chile, el Patio 29 es un sitio de memoria que representa simbólica y materialmente las marcas de la dictadura cívico-militar en Chile (1973-1989). A través de un análisis cualitativo de los documentos del Concurso Público del anteproyecto de puesta en valor del Patio 29, se da cuenta de la participación de distintos agentes (humanos y no humanos) que permitan “hacer ser” el memorial. Se concluye, que el despliegue técnico y burocrático que define la resolución del concurso es clave para legitimar la “mejor” representación material y simbólica del valor del Patio 29. Es decir, las prácticas “expertas” son determinantes para erigir al Patio 29 como dispositivo público de memoria social.

O Estado perante a vulnerabilidade

Os sujeitos vulneráveis (indivíduos e grupos), dos requerentes de asilo aos membros de minorias culturais e sociais, portadores de deficiência, idosos e mulheres, têm simultaneamente necessidades comuns e específicas de reconhecimento e proteção. Neste texto discute-se a atitude do Estado, constitucional e de Direito, perante a vulnerabilidade de indivíduos e grupos no contexto de uma teoria da justiça que sustenta um Estado comprometido com os direitos humanos e fundamentais e com a dignidade da pessoa humana, por um lado, e “responsivo” perante a vulnerabilidade, por outro. Tal exige um entendimento complexo da igualdade, exigindo simultaneamente a adoção de normas de proteção e de políticas iguais e diferenciadas. Exige igualmente que, a par da discussão sobre as possibilidades de proteção, se abordem os limites a essa proteção, designadamente aqueles que resultam da proteção jusfundamental da autonomia e da dignidade da pessoa humana.

Normalising death in the time of a pandemic

This paper examines a tension during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic between discourses of death as an anomaly and techniques for normalising death as an inevitable outcome of life. It contends that the technology of registering a death in the Global North in 2020 was conditioned upon differentiating between the normal and the pathological, standards and variations, and an average and excess. Indeed, the registration of a death depended on the creation of a new universal nomenclature for ascertaining causation, which excluded various circumstances of a person’s life in order to stabilise SARS-CoV-2 as a normative category for classification. The paper thus reveals how in the time of a pandemic, the technology of registration can be utilised to pathologise specific kinds of death, while unproblematically reifying the concept of a normal death. It argues that what the initial phase of COVID-19 exposes, particularly though the productive tension between discourses of death as both an anomaly and inevitability, is that normalising technologies are inextricable from how a panoply of institutions determine what deaths should be counted at all.