The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds
The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds

Author: Carlos Aguirre

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2005-01-27

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0822386437

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The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds is the first major historical study of the creation and development of the prison system in Peru. Carlos Aguirre examines the evolution of prisons for male criminals in Lima from the conception—in the early 1850s—of the initial plans to build penitentiaries through the early-twentieth-century prison reforms undertaken as part of President Augusto Leguia’s attempts to modernize and expand the Peruvian state. Aguirre reconstructs the social, cultural, and doctrinal influences that determined how lawbreakers were treated, how programs of prison reform fared, and how inmates experienced incarceration. He argues that the Peruvian prisons were primarily used not to combat crime or to rehabilitate allegedly deviant individuals, but rather to help reproduce and maintain an essentially unjust social order. In this sense, he finds that the prison system embodied the contradictory and exclusionary nature of modernization in Peru. Drawing on a large collection of prison and administrative records archived at Peru’s Ministry of Justice, Aguirre offers a detailed account of the daily lives of men incarcerated in Lima’s jails. In showing the extent to which the prisoners actively sought to influence prison life, he reveals the dynamic between prisoners and guards as a process of negotiation, accommodation, and resistance. He describes how police and the Peruvian state defined criminality and how their efforts to base a prison system on the latest scientific theories—imported from Europe and the United States—foundered on the shoals of financial constraints, administrative incompetence, corruption, and widespread public indifference. Locating his findings within the political and social mores of Lima society, Aguirre reflects on the connections between punishment, modernization, and authoritarian traditions in Peru.

After Dictatorship
After Dictatorship

Author: Peter Hoeres

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-02-20

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 3110796627

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Numerous studies concerning transitional justice exist. However, comparatively speaking, the effects actually achieved by measures for coming to terms with dictatorships have seldom been investigated. There is an even greater lack of transnational analyses. This volume contributes to closing this gap in research. To this end, it analyses processes of coming to terms with the past in seven countries with different experiences of violence and dictatorship. Experts have drawn up detailed studies on transitional justice in Albania, Argentina, Ethiopia, Chile, Rwanda, South Africa and Uruguay. Their analyses constitute the empirical material for a comparative study of the impact of measures introduced within the context of transitional justice. It becomes clear that there is no sure formula for dealing with dictatorships. Successes and deficits alike can be observed in relation to the individual instruments of transitional justice - from criminal prosecution to victim compensation. Nevertheless, the South American states perform much better than those on the African continent. This depends less on the instruments used than on political and social factors. Consequently, strategies of transitional justice should focus more closely on these contextual factors.

Handbook of Research on Transitional Justice and Peace Building in Turbulent Regions
Handbook of Research on Transitional Justice and Peace Building in Turbulent Regions

Author: Cante, Fredy

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2015-12-17

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 1466696761

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In the era of globalization, awareness surrounding issues of violence and human rights violations has reached an all-time high. In a world where billions of human beings have the potential to create endless destruction, these same individuals are capable of working cooperatively to create adequate solutions to current global problems. The Handbook of Research on Transitional Justice and Peace Building in Turbulent Regions focuses on current issues facing nations and regions where poverty and conflict are endangering the lives of citizens as well as the socio-economic viability of those regions. Highlighting crucial topics and offering potential solutions to problems relating to domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, as well as political instability, this comprehensive publication is designed to meet the research needs of economists, social theorists, politicians, policy makers, human rights activists, researchers, and graduate-level students across disciplines.

Amnesties, Pardons and Transitional Justice
Amnesties, Pardons and Transitional Justice

Author: Roldan Jimeno

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-07

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1351608614

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In a consolidated democracy, amnesties and pardons do not sit well with equality and a separation of powers; however, these measures have proved useful in extreme circumstances, such as transitions from dictatorships to democracies, as has occurred in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Focusing on Spain, this book analyses the country's transition, from the antecedents from 1936 up to the present, within a comparative European context. The amnesties granted in Greece, Portugal and Spain saw the release of political prisoners, but in Spain amnesty was also granted to those responsible for the grave violations of human rights which had been committed for 40 years. The first two decades of the democracy saw copious normative measures that sought to equate the rights of all those who had benefitted from the amnesty and who had suffered or had been damaged by the civil war. But, beyond the material benefits that accompanied it, this amnesty led to a sort of wilful amnesia which forbade questioning the legacy of Francoism. In this respect, Spain offers a useful lesson insofar as support for a blanket amnesty – rather than the use of other solutions within a transitional justice framework, such as purges, mechanisms to bring the dictatorship to trial for crimes against humanity, or truth commissions – can be traced to a relative weakness of democracy, and a society characterised by the fear of a return to political violence. This lesson, moreover, is framed here against the background of the evolution of amnesties throughout the twentieth century, and in the context of international law. Crucially, then, this analysis of what is now a global reference point for comparative studies of amnesties, provides new insights into the complex relationship between democracy and the varying mechanisms of transitional justice.