Popular Injustice

Popular Injusticefocuses on the spread of highly punitive forms of social control (known locally asmano dura) in contemporary Latin America. Many people have not only called for harsher punishments, such as longer prison sentences and the reintroduction of capital punishment, but also support vigilante practices like lynchings. In Guatemala, hundreds of these mob killings have occurred since the end of the country's armed conflict in 1996. Drawing on dozens of interviews with residents of lynching communities, Godoy argues that while these acts of violence do reveal widespread frustration with the criminal justice system, they are more than simply knee-jerk responses to crime. They demonstrate how community ties have been reshaped by decades of state violence and by the social and economic changes associated with globalization.

Angelina Snodgrass Godoy is Assistant Professor of Law, Societies, and Justice in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.