Towards a life course criminology of Latin America: The role of the State, labour market, and family in criminal trajectories

• In Event: European Developmental and Life-course Criminology Working Group, Panel 1. Criminal careers and offending trajectories

Abstract

Crime in Latin America has risen sharply the last two decades. This is closely connected to the growth of US drug markets, and the associated increase in drug trafficking and illegal armed organisations, but also poverty, diminishing trust in governments, and weakness or failure of states. In most of Latin America, crime is not only a security issue, but tightly connected to issues of poverty, corruption, and absence of the state. Still, compared to the US and Europe, relatively few large empirical studies of crime emerge from this region. While life-course criminology for example, has flourished in other contexts, it has been little applied in Latin America. Based on qualitative life-story interviews with 350 prisoners in seven countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico) we ask: What is the best way to theorize and understand the criminal careers and life-course trajectories of prisoners in Latin America? We highlight that which is the most different from what is previously described in the life-course criminology literature. Three main institutions and structural conditions that are decisive to understand the participants’ criminal trajectories stand out: The State, the labour market, and the family. The fragility of the State is seen in terms of health, housing, education, and security. Many start to work early and throughout their life they only have access to unstable, poorly paid jobs in black markets. Many also get children at a young age and extended family play is important. Sometimes the family and at other times criminal organizations may take the role of formal institutions. By providing a better understanding of the role of the State, employment, and family, in criminal trajectories in this region – the aim is to pave the way for a more critical, contextually and structurally sensitive life-course criminology of Latin America.

Authors

• Sveinung Sandberg, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo

• David Rodriguez Goyes, University of Oslo