Exporting criminological innovation abroad: Discursive representation, ‘evidence-based crime prevention’ and the post-neoliberal development agenda in Latin America

Abstract

The aim of this article is to stimulate a critical dialogue about the implications of northern criminologists working to promote their research abroad. It accounts for why attempts to generate impact on an international scale may prove problematic and illustrates potential pitfalls by analysing the content and discourses featured in a toolkit for evidence-based crime prevention developed for the Inter-American Development Bank in 2012. The example prompts important and timely questions about the practical and discursive implications of northern attempts to influence policy and practice in the South. The article concludes by accounting for the importance of reflexivity as a strategy for limiting this harm-generating potential and for fostering discursively representative policy deliberations.