Torture as a Method of Criminal Prosecution: Democratization, Criminal Justice Reform, and the Mexican Drug War

50 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2019

See all articles by Beatriz Magaloni

Beatriz Magaloni

Stanford University - Department of Political Science

Luis Rodriguez

Stanford University Department of Political Science

Date Written: February 28, 2019

Abstract

A criminal trial is likely the most significant interaction a citizen will ever have with the state; its conduct and adherence to norms of fairness bear directly on the quality of government, extent of democratic consolidation, and human rights. While theories of repression tend to focus on the political incentives to transgress against human rights, we examine a case in which the institutionalization of such violations follows an organizational logic rather than the political logic of regime survival or consolidation. We exploit a survey of the Mexican prison population and the implementation of reforms of the justice system to assess how reforms to criminal procedure reduce torture. We demonstrate that democratization produced a temporary decline in torture which then increased with the onset of the Drug War and militarization of security. Our results show that democracy alone is insufficient to restrain torture unless it is accompanied by institutionalized protections.

Keywords: torture, autocracy, democracy, drug war, criminal prosecution, police abuse

Suggested Citation

Magaloni, Beatriz and Rodriguez, Luis, Torture as a Method of Criminal Prosecution: Democratization, Criminal Justice Reform, and the Mexican Drug War (February 28, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3344814 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3344814

Beatriz Magaloni (Contact Author)

Stanford University - Department of Political Science ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States
650-724-7481 (Phone)

Luis Rodriguez

Stanford University Department of Political Science ( email )

Stanford, CA 94305
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
289
Abstract Views
1,886
Rank
224,769
PlumX Metrics