The judicial response to police killings in Latin America /
This book documents the corrosive effect of social exclusion on democracy and the rule of law. It shows how marginalization prevents citizens from effectively engaging even the best legal systems, how politics creeps into prosecutorial and judicial decision making, and how institutional change is of...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2008
Cambridge : 2008 |
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| Summary: | This book documents the corrosive effect of social exclusion on democracy and the rule of law. It shows how marginalization prevents citizens from effectively engaging even the best legal systems, how politics creeps into prosecutorial and judicial decision making, and how institutional change is often nullified by enduring contextual factors. It also shows how some institutional arrangements can overcome these impediments. The argument is based on extensive field work and original data on the investigation and prosecution of more than 500 police homicides in five legal systems in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It includes both qualitative analyses of individual violations and prosecutions and quantitative analyses of broad patterns within and across jurisdictions. The book offers a structured comparison of police, prosecutorial, and judicial institutions in each location, and shows that analyses of any one of these organizations in isolation misses many of the essential dynamics that underlie an effective system of justice This book examines the effect of social inequality, political influence, and institutional design on the effectiveness of legal systems in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It demonstrates the inequality existent in these systems, as well as the occasional successes. Its focus is on the criminal prosecution of violent police officers, but it draws implications for democracy, the rule of law, court functioning, and police violence. The book describes judicial, prosecutorial, and police structures and operation, as well as the nature of and response to lethal police violence in each location |
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| Item Description: | Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015) |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 289 pages) : digital, PDF file(s) 1 online resource (xi, 289 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-283) and index Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-283) and index |
| ISBN: | 0-511-46181-X 0-511-46256-5 0-511-46335-9 0-511-46414-2 0-511-46488-6 0-511-55113-4 0511462565 0511463359 0511464142 0511464886 0511551134 1-107-18067-8 1-281-98232-6 1107180678 1281982326 6611982329 9780511462566 9780511463358 9780511464140 9780511464881 9780511551130 9781107180673 9781281982322 9786611982324 |