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Mano Dura And Beyond: An Analysis Of Police Reform In Latin America, Ari Moore Jan 2022

Mano Dura And Beyond: An Analysis Of Police Reform In Latin America, Ari Moore

CMC Senior Theses

Physical insecurity and high rates of crime plague Latin America. The problem is economically costly, detrimental to physical and mental health, and damaging to political legitimacy, while also fueling a migration crisis and negatively impacting societal views on human rights. The police are tasked with responding to and investigating crime, but have been historically ineffective at doing so. In recent decades, many countries in the region have implemented significant police reforms in pursuit of decreasing crime and insecurity. This thesis will analyze reforms in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico to determine regional themes of reform. The lessons from those case …


Drug Violence And Public (In)Security: Mexico's Federal Police And Human Rights Abuse, Dominic Pera May 2015

Drug Violence And Public (In)Security: Mexico's Federal Police And Human Rights Abuse, Dominic Pera

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Violence in Mexico, with dramatic political, social, and economic consequences on both Mexican and US populations, has risen dramatically in the past decade. Research has shown that the Mexican military is largely responsible for human rights abuses in Mexico. This paper will seek to answer why there are so many human rights abuses committed by the Federal Police, as public security is a police role and its deterioration threatens lives, security, and the rule of law. This paper will look at what scholars have said about the causes of police violence and public insecurity. Some say that history is responsible, …


Criminal Authorities And The State: Gangs, Organized Crime, And Police In Brazil, Michael Wolff Sep 2014

Criminal Authorities And The State: Gangs, Organized Crime, And Police In Brazil, Michael Wolff

Political Science ETDs

Drug gangs and organized criminal groups rarely evolve into structured authorities governing their resident communities. Where this occurs, however, they may effectively replace the state in its most basic functions, and consequently exclude subject populations from the rights and protections supposedly guaranteed by the state. Employing qualitative research methods, this study compares criminal development and state public security policies in Rio de Janeiro and Recife, Brazil. The research is primarily concerned with the development of criminal authority structures, and asks when, where, why, and how they develop. Arguing that the extant literature on organized crime fails to adequately explain this …


An Evaluation Of The Potential Impact Of Community Oriented Policing In Latin America, Gabriella A. Ippolito Aug 2013

An Evaluation Of The Potential Impact Of Community Oriented Policing In Latin America, Gabriella A. Ippolito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the potential impact of community oriented policing in Latin America through a series of case studies from Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and El Salvador dating from the early 1990’s to the present. They are analyzed through a typology that organizes community oriented policing strategies according to costliness to the police. Costliness is defined as the amount of power that the police have to renounce to the community to implement a certain strategy. The thesis concludes that community oriented policing is an improvement over militarized policing strategies as it has the possibility to enhance both human security and …


The Threat To Democracy In Brazil's Public Sphere, Daniel Nettuno Jan 2011

The Threat To Democracy In Brazil's Public Sphere, Daniel Nettuno

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the nature of violence with its endemic, and increasingly epidemic presence in Brazil. I analyze the structure of the justice system, police force, and the many governmental security programs in order to better explain why Brazil is so violent and its government has been unable to control this violence. Living under violent conditions, Brazil has become a society where the efficient functioning of the public sphere has been undermined. This public space, shared by citizens, is what many academics believe to be a critical component of a robust and functioning democracy. In Brazil, it is shown, …