Order first, justice later’: emergency criminal policy as a path towards development. The Colombian Case

Abstract

During the last decade, the governments of different countries in Western Europe and America have adopted emergency criminal policies to combat criminal phenomena which they regard as particularly dangerous (such as terrorism and narcotrafficking), for they a threat to the existence of the state and society. With the argument that they are defending the rule of law and democracy, governments' actions and policies have consolidated an emergency penal culture whereupon order and security are invoked not only to limit huma rights, but also to push economic and social justice into the background of the political agenda. This, order and security are regarded as pre-condition for economic development and social welfare. This outlook, which has captured the penal imagination of several western democracies, entails a conservative and neoliberal political economy that promotes the expansion of the repressive functions of the state, as well as the rolling back of its active intervention in the economic and social spheres.

This paper discusses the Colombian case where different political, economic, and social phenomena have contributed to the expansion and consolidations of emergency penal culture. During the last decade, the rise to power of conservative governments which defend the neoliberal model, together with a protracted armed conflict and the phenomenon of narcotrafficking, have made crime control a key battlefield for the defense and expansion of such model.