METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN THE STUDY OF HOMICIDES IN LATIN AMERICAN CITIES: THE CASE OF MONTEVIDEO
Keywords:
violence, contagion, drugs, gangsAbstract
In the same way that cases of a contagious disease originate from other cases (through contact of infected people with healthy people), homicides rooted in dynamics of retaliation and score settling also originate from other homicides (although following an obviously different mechanism of causation than the transmission of a pathogen). The possible analogies between the spread of homicide and that of contagious diseases have been repeatedly pointed out in criminological literature. This article uses this analogy to try to shed light on the phenomenon of the recent increase in homicide levels in the city of Montevideo, a place that has had, historically, low levels of interpersonal violence by Latin American standards. In the process, the article introduces data analysis techniques that have not yet been much used within the field of Criminology, most likely exemplifying them for the first time in Spanish.
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