Police violence, corrupt cops, and the repudiation of stigma among underclass residents in Mexico City

Abstract

The relationship between police corruption and violence is well established in Latin America. Those with less power in poor communities often adapt their actions to serve their group interests in response to constraints placed on them by law enforcement. Using ethnographic and qualitative methods, we probe the effect of corrupt police behavior on the stigma of arrest and imprisonment by members of impoverished neighborhoods in Mexico City. Using an interpretive approach, we find that widespread corruption and police violence has indirectly mitigated the negative effects of the stigma or arrest and incarceration by what we term the repudiation of stigma. For the subjects in our study, the adjustment to pervasive corruption has led amelioration of the social stigma associated with arrest and incarceration among those with whom they share similar biographies of experience. More generally, repudiation of stigma highlights the ability of the marginalized to deflect the social consequences of being arrested and having a criminal record.