Latin American elites and bureaucrats became obsessed with crime starting in the middle of the nineteenth-century. Their obsessions reflected a strange mixture of pseudo science, racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. This presentation lays out some of the reasons that these moral panics emerged and also analyzes the ways that these same individuals sought to resolve the perceived problems of modernity.
Jonathan Ablard presents at the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at IC
By History Department, October 1, 2026
Jonathan Ablard presents on Crime Panics in Latin America, 1850-1930