Articles

Democracies often struggle to contain police violence, which undermines the rule of law and reproduces inequality by targeting marginalized citizens. Yet, scholars have shown that repressive policing enjoys considerable public support. Focusing on Brazil...

What explains variation in mayors’ strategic linkages with police forces they do not formally control? This question is of central importance in Latin America, home to 43 of the 50 most violent cities in the world. As mayors with limited to no authority...

Political scientist Hakeem Jefferson (Stanford University) facilitated a discussion about race, policing, and the state of American democracy with fellow political scientists Cathy J. Cohen (University of Chicago), Yanilda M. González (Harvard Kennedy...

Institutional reforms often diverge from substantive problems and societal demands that originally prompted reform, raising questions about democratic responsiveness. Such reform gaps are prevalent in policing, wherein some police forces improve capacity...

Can democratic participation reduce inequalities in citizenship produced by policing? We argue that citizen participation in policing produces a paradox, which we call asymmetric citizenship. For some citizens, expanding participation in policing expands...

The institutionalization of community participation in the context of policing has become increasingly common in Latin America as a means of addressing the seemingly intractable increase in crime and insecurity. The creation of formal spaces for...

Despite historic increases in crime and violence, Latin America’s police forces are characterized by long periods of institutional weakness punctuated by rare, sweeping reforms. To understand these patterns of institutional continuity and change, the...

The role of exercising the state's coercive authority makes the police both an instrument of power and a formidable political actor whose cooperation is needed by politicians.

Police exercise the state’s monopoly of legitimate use of force, a fundamental state function that shapes the construction of citizenship. What are the implications for citizenship when that monopoly is profoundly contested and unevenly distributed? This...

The language of community and societal participation in the context of crime prevention has become ubiquitous throughout Latin America, as governments increasingly turn to police–community partnerships as a means of addressing the seemingly intractable...