The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America

Brinks, Daniel M.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511551130

Cited by 89 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…According to forensic studies, police often falsify the circumstances of contact killings (Cano, 1997), up to 70 percent of which may result from unlawful police violence (Human Rights Watch, 2009). Many cases are not investigated, let alone prosecuted, and those that reach the courts rarely result in convictions (Brinks, 2008).…”

Section: Police Abuse In Brazil's War On Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

Policing following political and social transitions: Russia, Brazil, and China compared

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Prado

Wang

2015

Theoretical Criminology

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This is a comparative analysis of policing in three countries that have experienced a major political or social transition, Russia, Brazil, and China. We consider two related questions: (1) how has transition in each country affected the deployment of the police against regime opponents (which we term "repression")? And (2) how has the transition affected other police misconduct that also victimizes citizens but is not directly ordered by the regime ("abuse")? As expected, authoritarian regimes are more likely to perpetrate severe repression. However, the most repressive authoritarian regimes such as China may also contain oversight institutions that limit police abuse. We also assess the relative importance of both transitional outcomes and processes in posttransition policing evolution, arguing that the "abusiveness" of contemporary Brazilian police reflects the failure to create oversight mechanisms during the transition, and that the increasing "repressiveness" of Chinese police reflects a conscious effort by the Chinese Communist Party to reinforce the police in an era of economic liberalization. In contrast, Russian police are both significantly abusive and repressive, although less systematically "repressive" than Chinese police, and less "abusive" (or at least violent)

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Section: Police Abuse In Brazil's War On Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

Policing following political and social transitions: Russia, Brazil, and China compared

Light

Prado

Wang

2015

Theoretical Criminology

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“…That victims are themselves initiating human rights cases seems to be an appropriate response when considering that, in general, governments have either low incentives to prosecute and convict their own agents (Brinks 2008), or little legal room to prosecute given that amnesty laws are commonly implemented amidst democratic transitions (Lessa and Payne 2012).…”

Section: Private Actors and Human Rights Prosecutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Rights Enforcement From Below: Private Actors and Prosecutorial Momentum in Latin America and Europe

Dancy

Michel

2015

Int Stud Q

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Over the last three decades, thousands of prosecutions for human rights abuses have progressed through domestic courts, a puzzling fact considering that state leaders have little incentive to punish their own agents. Previous studies have advanced rational-choice or sociological-institutionalist accounts of this phenomenon, emphasizing the role of political coalitions or regional cultures. Few, though, have recognized the local, private struggles that lie at the root of the trend toward domestic human rights enforcement. In this article, we develop a historical-institutionalist theory of normative change centered on the notion of "prosecutorial momentum." We contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents in Europe and Latin America results in large part from the cumulative efforts of victims and human rights lawyers utilizing their rights to private criminal prosecution. Using a new data set and mixed methods, we offer a systematic analysis of how rights to private criminal prosecution, when activated in response to a legacy of repression, helps set in motion sustained efforts to pursue domestic enforcement and compliance with international law.National leaders have little rational incentive to punish the very agents on whom they rely for coercion. Yet increasingly often, domestic courts across the world bring state agents to trial for human rights violations. Between 1970 and 2010, for example, more than 3,000 domestic human rights prosecutions were initiated, and this has resulted in moderate improvements to physical integrity rights protections (Kim and Sikkink 2010:956-58). 1 This is evidence of the global but decentralized enforcement of international law and norms (Sikkink 2011). How can we account for this rise in domestic efforts for criminal accountability of human rights violations?While the human rights and transitional justice literature points to numerous explanations, we build on recent research that highlights domestic institutions as an explanatory factor behind the rise of human rights accountability efforts. Top-down rationalist or sociological explanations attribute the rise of prosecutions either to the stable preferences of political coalitions or to static regional cultures. Instead, we advance an historical-institutionalist argument about gradual change (Pierson 2004; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Specifically, we contend that the rise in domestic trials against rights-abusing state agents results in large part from victims and human rights lawyers' litigating at the domestic level. By creatively utilizing existing legal-institutional tools over time, these opportunistic actors produce sustained campaigns for human rights accountability.We are not the first to make the argument that individuals interacting with available institutions can promote human rights enforcement (Collins 2010;Sikkink 2011;Burt 2013;Michel and Sikkink 2013;Davis 2014;Gonzalez Ocantos 2014). In particular, Michel and Sikkink (2013) introduce the importance of victims' rights in criminal proce...

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“…In a detailed study of five state and provincial jurisdictions in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, Daniel Brinks shows that judicial responses to police abuse are dependent on many more variables (such as intrinsic biases in the system and informational and normative failures) than simply an investigative system to collect the necessary information for prosecution to take place, an effective and impartial prosecutorial office, and an independent judiciary. 91 Thus, to effectively deal with such problems, reformers need to look at the entire system, including victims' access to legal aid, instead of looking at one institution in the system, the police. 92 In this context, there are important reforms of these other institutions that may help improve police behaviour, 93 but it is not particularly helpful to suggest that Latin American countries need to revamp their rule of law institutions across the board in order to achieve democratic policing.…”

Section: Bypassing Dysfunctional Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%