Crime and punishment. A reflection from Latin America

  This article presents the debate between two visions regarding ways to confront the criminality. On the one hand, the vision that human beings rationally decide their behavior and choose their options freely when facing the contrasted values ??of crime and punishment. On the other hand, t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Coimbra, Luiz Octavio, Briones, Álvaro
Formato: Revistas
Lenguaje:Español
Publicado: FLACSO - Sede Ecuador 2019
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.flacsoandes.edu.ec/urvio/article/view/3779
Descripción
Sumario:  This article presents the debate between two visions regarding ways to confront the criminality. On the one hand, the vision that human beings rationally decide their behavior and choose their options freely when facing the contrasted values ??of crime and punishment. On the other hand, the idea that criminality may have roots in social and economic situations in which it is possible to act by correcting social anomalies and preventing crime. For the first of these visions, the penal sanction, the prison, represents exclusively the punishment; for the second, it is the path of rehabilitation and social reintegration. The article shows that, between these two alternatives, most Latin American countries have opted for the first during the last decades. Consequently, they have adopted “iron-fist” public policies, which emphasize the punishment instead of prevention and rehabilitation. The article seeks to demonstrate that this path has not yielded results in relation to the objective of dissuading delinquent behavior. Consequently, that policy must be modified.