Latin American Criminal Justice System Summary
The topic discussed in this article is the criminal justice system of Latin America. It attempts to reveal how Latin American societies still demonstrate authoritarianism and exclusion (both economic and political) even though recent reforms encourage the ideals of democracy and free markets (Iturralde,309). It also describes the people who are affected most by this, which is the underprivileged classes. Latin America has increasing crime rate, but no criminal justice systems to control the matter, which ends up leading to correctional punishment (Iturralde,330). The ones usually receiving the correctional punishment are the most vulnerable and marginalized. The journal article also goes into detail about neoliberal reforms and how they have
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According to Manuel Iturralde “[…] half of the population live in poverty and does not have access to health care, education, social welfare, and the labor market”, despite all the reforms made to provide a solution to this problem (310). Not only were the reforms supposed to help the underprivileged classes, but they were also established to help Latin America move on from their violent past. Nevertheless, the adoption of the neoliberal model has only expanded the gap between the social classes, making them “democracies without citizenship” (Iturralde, 310). The presence of the gap makes it easier for wealthy people to avoid violent behavior of the law that the underprivileged classes have to face. In the article the author states, “Latin America Displayed the highest levels of victimization in the world: more than 75 percent of people living in cities were victims of crime at least once, compared to 73 percent in Africa and 60 percent in Western Europe”, this statement goes on to support that the justice system needs reevaluation (Iturralde, 329). For this gap to shrink in size there must be government intervention, but because of Latin America’s position in the world system they are every limited to what they can do to modify and adapt to their advantage (Iturralde, 315). For this to change there must Latin America need to alter their criminal polices so that they do not only target the vulnerable classes, these criminal policies have to benefit both the elites and the ones who are below
According to Manuel Iturralde “[…] half of the population live in poverty and does not have access to health care, education, social welfare, and the labor market”, despite all the reforms made to provide a solution to this problem (310). Not only were the reforms supposed to help the underprivileged classes, but they were also established to help Latin America move on from their violent past. Nevertheless, the adoption of the neoliberal model has only expanded the gap between the social classes, making them “democracies without citizenship” (Iturralde, 310). The presence of the gap makes it easier for wealthy people to avoid violent behavior of the law that the underprivileged classes have to face. In the article the author states, “Latin America Displayed the highest levels of victimization in the world: more than 75 percent of people living in cities were victims of crime at least once, compared to 73 percent in Africa and 60 percent in Western Europe”, this statement goes on to support that the justice system needs reevaluation (Iturralde, 329). For this gap to shrink in size there must be government intervention, but because of Latin America’s position in the world system they are every limited to what they can do to modify and adapt to their advantage (Iturralde, 315). For this to change there must Latin America need to alter their criminal polices so that they do not only target the vulnerable classes, these criminal policies have to benefit both the elites and the ones who are below