Variations on the Latin American Penal State: mapping the structure and effects of neoliberal penality in Argentina and Chile

PAUL HATHAZY

Berlin

Workshop; Re-thinking the State:; 2014

Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universitat Berlin

Enriching our knowledge of the recent transformations and effects of the penal state in Latin America I analyze the variations in the institutional structure and in the material and symbolic effects of the penal state in post-authoritarian and neoliberal Argentina and Chile. Going beyond general characterizations of the neoliberal penal state as centered on more intense and violent policing and expanded informal imprisonment this presentation shows the distinct structures of the penal state in neoliberal Chile and Argentina well as the very different material (infrastructural) and symbolic (legitimacy) effects of those penal bureaucracies. Out of struggles for reform in democratic times, penal state-making in Chile resulted in expanded but reformed police forces, new highly efficient prosecuting and sentencing bureaucracies and high levels of sentenced prisoners, with all penal organizations following a philosophy of citizens security and efficiency. In Argentina, by contrast, the penal state in democratic times remained centered in traditional abusive police forces, weak and inefficient courts and warehousing prisons with high levels of prisoners on remand. Variations in the institutional structure and symbolic coherence across the penal sector of the state resulted in variations in punitiveness but also in levels of legitimacy of the new penal states. In Chile the penal state today is highly punitive, but also highly legitimate in the eyes of the citizenry; whereas in Argentina, even if somewhat less punitive, it is still highly illegitimate. These differences in legitimacy determine, in part, the strength of critiques and alternatives to the penal management of exclusion and social insecurity