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The Culture of Fear and Control in Costa Rica (I): Crime Statistics and Law Enforcement

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  • Huhn, Sebastian

Abstract

The Costa Rican talk of crime is fundamentally based on the assumption that crime rates have increased significantly in recent years and that there is today a vast and alarming amount of crime. On the basis of this assumption, fear of crime, the call for the 'iron fist', and drastic law enforcement actions are continually increasing. While crime statistics are the logical basis for the hypothesis on the far-reaching extent of delinquency, they are used in a problematic way in the talk of crime. In this paper I discuss Costa Rican crime statistics, their development, and their utilization in the talk of crime against the background of criminological theory. The theses of the paper are that a) the informative value of crime statistics regarding Costa Rican reality is far more questionable than the common utilization of them implies and b) when they are used as argumentation, these crime statistics do not provide evidence of the oft-proclaimed rising crime wave.

Suggested Citation

  • Huhn, Sebastian, 2009. "The Culture of Fear and Control in Costa Rica (I): Crime Statistics and Law Enforcement," GIGA Working Papers 104, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gigawp:104
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Huhn, Sebastian, 2008. "A History of Nonviolence: Insecurity and the Normative Power of the Imagined in Costa Rica," GIGA Working Papers 84, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    2. Huhn, Sebastian, 2009. "Contested Cornerstones of Nonviolent National Self-Perception in Costa Rica: A Historical Approach," GIGA Working Papers 101, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    3. Huhn, Sebastian, 2008. "Discourses on Violence in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua: Social Perceptions in Everyday Life," GIGA Working Papers 81, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    4. Peetz, Peter, 2008. "Discourses on Violence in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua: Youth, Crime, and the Responses of the State," GIGA Working Papers 80, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
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    Cited by:

    1. Huhn, Sebastian, 2009. "The Culture of Fear and Control in Costa Rica (II): The Talk of Crime and Social Changes," GIGA Working Papers 108, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.

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