CALL FOR PAPERS CRIME AND VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA

Inter-American Conference on Social Security (CISS)
Mexico City, Mexico – October 1^st, 2010

Persistently high crime rates and violence in Latin America have made it the top concern for most of the region’s population. Policy intervention has generally been ineffective in bringing down the rates of homicide and other crimes in most cities, and represents one of the most complex issues facing policymakers today. Research efforts in this topic are increasing in the region and the CISS, with the support of the UNDP and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) is hosting a conference to bring together academics working in this field.

Although this is a Latin American conference, papers using data from other regions will also be considered. Several areas of study are of particular interest:

· Public Policy Evaluation (Social prevention, situational prevention, local versus national policy, coordination of social and safety policy, etc.)

· Judicial System / Institutions (Police forces, courts and public prosecution, prisons)

· Organized crime (Drug dealing, arms smuggling, effect on public safety and crime)

· Measurement (Types and characteristics of insecurity and violent crime, quality of available data, victimization inequality)

· The political economy of public intervention (Electoral returns, policy shifts from iron fist to softer policy, etc.)

· The role of the media (Does violence-ridden entertainment / news beget more violence?)

Priority will be given to empirical papers that convincingly establish a causal relationship between economic/social variables. We will have two keynote presentations, one by Ernesto Schargrodsky (U. Torcuato Di Tella) on the state of crime research in Latin America and another by [Stefano della Vigna (U.C. Berkeley) / Jeffrey Grogger (U. of Chicago)] on innovations in crime research.

Selected papers (approximately 8) will be invited to the conference to be held in Mexico City on October 1^st, 2010. Economy-class plane tickets and expenses will be covered for participants (one per paper). Some authors may be invited to publish their papers in a special issue of Well Being and Social Policy, the journal edited by the CISS.

Papers should be sent to Daniel Ortega (dortega@caf.com) no later than July 15, 2010. Decisions will be announced by August 13th 2010.

Organizing Committee:

President: Daniel Ortega, Guest Editor, CAF

Rodolfo de la Torre, Editor, UNDP Mexico

Eduardo Rodríguez-Oreggia, Associate Editor, EGAP ITESM CEM

Nelly Aguilera, Inter-American Center for Social Security Studies

Luis Felipe López-Calva, UNDP Latin America