CRMJ 389 - Criminal Justice in Latin America

Credit Hours: 3

Latin American countries have criminal justice institutions based on fundamental principles similar to those of US criminal justice institutions: due process, substantive criminal and criminal procedural law, basic organization into police, courts and corrections sectors, written constitutions, etc. Yet Latin American criminal justice institutions often in practice function very differently from those in the US. This course presents case studies on Latin American criminal justice institutions with topics including police reform in Bolivia; use of the National Guard in counter-narcotics in Puerto Rico; judicial police reform in Mexico; prosecutorial reform in Guatemala; and others.