vol. 23 núm. 39 (2021)

During five years (2006-2011), the forest of the indigenous community of Cherán, located in the state of Michoacán, Mexico, suffered a destruction process that ended with about 70% of the timber area. During this period, a series of associations were formed between local and foreign actors involved in illegal logging (loggers) and in the defense of the territory (comuneros). The purpose of this article is to provide a dense description of the process of figuration between comuneros and loggers in these years. The main argument is that, far from forming dichotomous relationships between the two groups, there were a series of connections that oscillated between cooperation and conflict. The analytical framework follows the sociological proposal of Norbert Elias with respect to the concept of figuration. The methodology is qualitative and was developed through ethnographic fieldwork.

In this article I analyze the legal production of opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) in Spain. First, I review the historical legislation on the subject, characterized by orthodoxy with respect to the international regime and the consequent overlapping between national and international decisions. Subsequently, I describes the cultivation of the narcotic, a strategic product in the tradition of the State monopoly (estanco), and characterize Alcaliber, the concessionaire for decades. Finally, I organize the information from open-source about licenses, hectares and control on the cultivation and harvesting chains, data that was usually scattered due to the legal cultivation of opium poppy.

Studies on criminal desistance associate the rupture with crime to various personal and social factors, as well as to the agency and perception of personal self-efficacy of. Despite increasing criminological interest in the topic of criminal career cessation, theoretical inconsistencies, imprecise definitions, and the rules used to measure it, continue to hinder a comprehensive understanding. This article analyzes the role of structural conditioning factors, such as family, education, and previous work experience, in criminal desistance, using an interpretive approach and qualitative techniques including: analysis of court files ans interviews with four female enforcement judges, two public defenders, and particularly, the accounts of 15 former convicts of various criminal categories, who successfully completed their probation period. These are adult men who served sentences in two Paraguayan prisons characterized by overcrowding, violence, lack of access to fundamental rights and the absence of prison treatment programs, and who voluntarily agreed to collaborate with the research. The findings show that resources and prosocial skills before imprisonment and their ability to maintain or increase them during imprisonment and in liberty are essential for them to stay away from crime, despite their time in the penitentiary system.

Based on a socio-territorial analysis, guided by the concept of social capital, this article describes the insecurity conditions in which four facilities of Mexico City´s Points of Innovation, Liberty, Art, Education and Knowledge (Pilares, for its acronym in Spanish) program operate. In accordance with this purpose, we begin with the characterization of the Pilares program; later we present the conceptual section focused on social capital, a notion associated with security and urban space, which serves as a guide to the challenges and opportunities of each scenario of the program studied. Subsequently, we discuss in depth the socio-territorial security analysis of the four neighborhoods in which the selected Pilares are located, in the Cuauhtémoc and Iztapalapa districts. We conclude with the challenges and opportunities to generate social capital, which is aimed at containing violence in these Pilares.

The article aims to identify the causal configurations of the high rate of pedestrian robbery in the districts of the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (ZMVM). Based on the theories of social disorganization and routine activities, the hypothesis is that this phenomenon occurs in contexts where conditions associated with the presence of potential offenders and criminal opportunities are combined. The methodology is based on a comparative qualitative analysis using the fuzzy set technique (fsQCA). The hypothesis is empirically tested, and shows the causal complexity of the spatial concentration of crime in terms of equifinality, although the theoretical projections showed contextual limits.

In recent years, the concerns to identify the variables associated with the occurrence of crimes in specific areas of cities has become more relevant, which has led to the generation of various explanatory frameworks. Some of these state that the cause of crime concentration are socioeconomic factors, while other frameworks attribute this phenomenon to the properties of spatial design. Within this last category, we can find the spatial syntax approach which, in the case of crime, explains how certain variables can influence the spatial behavior of crime. This paper identifies the relationship of spatial properties, such as connectivity and accessibility, and the type of property crime committed in the Cuauhtémoc district of Mexico City. For the analysis, we applied spatial syntax and a zero-inflated negative binomial regression models.

Dedicamos el primero de dos números especiales a reflexionar sobre las violencias y las políticas de seguridad, sin duda temas acuciantes de la realidad latinoamericana, debido a que es la región con más homicidios en el mundo. En este subcontinente es evidente la multiplicación de conflictos, y la confluencia en diversos gradientes de criminalidad organizada y común; también son visibles los rezagos estructurales y las debilidades institucionales que disminuyen la capacidad de respuesta ante las crisis que han formado parte del panorama cotidiano.