Crime & Violence

Brazil’s highly militarized policing disproportionately impacts poor and racialized communities. By providing funding and training, the United States has helped exacerbate the crisis.

This list, put together for LAB by Camila Vergara Ruiz on the 10 year anniversary of the Ayotzinapa case, gathers informative resources to help us understand the forced disappearance of 43 students in Iguala in 2014. The list includes books, a podcast, a web platform and a documentary film.

Peru’s complicated history is mirrored in the controversies affecting the Peruvian National Police (PNP). The violent treatment of Indigenous anti-government demonstrators illustrates the prevalence of racialised discrimination in Peru’s society, whilst recent revelations about the PNP’s disciplinary crisis provide an insight into the nation’s internal divisions.

A bust of Berta Cáceres was installed in a square in Tegucigalpa's civic centre, next to a bank owned by the Atala family, who have been accused as one of the masterminds behind her murder. This piece was originally published in Spanish by Contracorriente.

The candlelit event 'On the Verge of Silence: Sonic and Poetic Fragments’, blended soundscapes and testimonies from Colombia's Truth Commission Final Report to create an immersive atmosphere and disposition to listening

Notably, deep-rooted inequalities and a weak state have allowed a destabilising narcotics economy to flourish across Latin America, argues Andrew Nickson Relying on the export of primary products has reinforced inequality

A chance discovery of a gold mining dredge in Madre de Dios in the Peruvian Amazon led observers to a wretched miners' camp where youg girls were chained in a hut and used for sex.

Powerful politicians in Guatemala overlooked the tiny centre-left Semilla Party who, with its offer of ‘a new Guatemalan Spring’, won a landslide victory against the UNE party of Sandra Torres on August 20.

Oil palm producer Brazilian Biofuels is accused of violating land rights and using violence against those who oppose its intrusion onto indigenous and quilombo lands. Its response has been to launch a wave of law suits targeting protestors, prosecutors and even the police

Netflix docu-series 'A Kidnapping Scandal: The Florence Cassez Affair' sheds light on one of Mexico's most controversial corruption cases –without glorifying the horror experienced.