Fear and Crime in Latin America

Lucía Dammert is Executive Director of the Global Consortium on Security Transformation (GCST). From 2001 to 2004 she was Research Coordinator of the area 'Civil Society and Security' at the Center of Citizen Security Studies, University of Chile, and served as Co-director of the project 'Police Reform and Public Security in the Americas', based at Georgetown University, from 2002 to 2004. In Chile she is Adviser to the Under-Secretary of the Interior on public security issues.

• Introduction 1. Democracy, Modernity and Fear in Contemporary Chile 2. Fear as a Category for Analysis 3. Violence, Crime and Policies: Background 4. Is Chile a Unique Case? Insecurity Conditions in Latin America 5. The City: Segregation and Day-to-Day Fear 6. Distrust, Insecurity and Authoritarianism 7. Conclusions

"Varieties of crime, especially violent crime, top the policy agenda throughout most of Latin America and the Caribbean. An important research question is the ways in which crime generates fear in the citizenry and the types of personal, social, and political responses that fear provokes. These important linkages have not been sufficiently explored to date. Lucia Dammert, a leader in the new generation of Latin American scholars on citizen security, breaks new ground on these themes with a focus on Chile and the broader implications for the region."—John Bailey, Professor of Political Science, Georgetown University"Lucia Dammert, one of the best analysts working on citizen security, has written an extremely important book. Dammert is scrupulous in her research and sophisticated and imaginative in her thinking. Her interpretation of the Chilean case and broader insights about fear are illuminating. No issue has greater implications for social peace and democratic governance in Latin America."—Michael Shifter, President, Inter-American Dialogue