Social Responses to Criminal Governance in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Kingston, and Medellín

Abstract

Over the past generation Latin America has experienced high levels of criminal violence associated with extortion, the drug trade, and other criminal rackets. While there has been considerable research into the role of state policy in controlling criminal violence, there has been considerably less investment in analyzing the success of social action to control both police and criminal violence in the high-conflict zones where criminal groups operate. The inadequacy of the existing literature emerges at least in part from the limited data on successful social efforts to control violence in urban areas controlled by organized crime groups. Drawing on over three hundred qualitative interviews conducted in four cities in Latin America and the Caribbean over an extended period of time, this article examines the various strategies used by civic groups to control violent activities on the part of police and criminal groups. The article observes six different forms of social responses to violence and points to the conditions under which these actions emerge.