Pandemic, Criminal Governance and Mechanisms of Social and Economic Regulation in Three Latin American Contexts

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a series of adversities not only in people’s lives but also in cities and their forms of territorial organization. How has it interfered with the mechanisms of social and economic regulation of crime in Latin America? This article compares three urban contexts where the regulation of armed actors has become important and criminal governance has reached a certain degree of stability or sophistication. Taking the pandemic as a turning point, we compare possible transformations related to mechanisms of regulation used by illegal armed groups in the peripheries of large cities or centers of power in Colombia and Brazil.