The only reader currently available on criminality in Latin America, "Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America" reconstructs the way in which different Latin American societies have viewed, described, defined, and reacted to criminal behavior. Crime in Latin America is explored in terms of gender, race, class, and criminological theory.

The highly readable essays in this book explore how Catholic notions of sin, natural law, the divine rights of absolutist monarchs, liberal rights of man, positivism, and social Darwinism received a sympathetic, even enthusiastic, endorsement from policy...