Human Rights Backlash from Below: Criminal Violence, Justice & the Rule of Law

• In Event: The Politics of Illicit Economies, Organized Crime, and Extra-Legal Actors Mini-Conference: New Research in Criminal Politics: Criminal Competition and Violence

Abstract

Dramatic changes in Latin American criminal justice systems over the past few decades have expanded formal human rights protections for the accused. Yet at the same time due process has improved on the books, governments have undermined rights by militarizing public safety in response to violence and public demand to control crime. Indeed, in Mexico and other violent democracies across the globe, large proportions of the public are willing to compromise human rights protections in exchange for security and order. This paper examines both the causes and consequences of citizen backlash against human rights protections in Mexico. It asks: What leads citizens to develop negative attitudes toward legally enshrined human rights for the accused? And what impact do new rights protections have on individual preferences surrounding crime control strategies? I use multiple methods to answer these research questions, including original in-depth qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, large-scale survey data, and survey experiments. The first part argues that more robust human rights protections within criminal procedures are often perceived by the public not as a requirement of balanced justice, but instead as a contributing factor to impunity and the obstruction of redress. The qualitative research demonstrates the mechanisms that connect citizen interactions with the justice system and attitudinal backlash against human rights. The second part examines whether improved rights protections in the formal justice system increase support for extralegal responses to crime. This research contributes to our understanding of how major security and justice reforms impact citizen attitudes and behavior, and demonstrates the risks to the implementation and stability of rights-protecting laws in violent contexts.

Author

• Hannah Baron, Brown University