Description
Book SynopsisAn analysis of the complex moral interpretations crime was given by Mexico's urban poor and of the evolving institutional responses to crime and punishment in modern Mexico.
Trade Review“
City of Suspects offers a perceptive and original analysis of crime and punishment in early twentieth-century Mexico City. Spanning the authoritarian twilight of the Porfiriato, the violent catharsis of the Revolution,and the flawed social reformism of the 1920s, it roams the streets and households, barrios and penitentiaries of the city,exploring changing state policy and social mores, while illuminating concerns—crime, policing, moral panics—which are as relevant today as they were a century ago.”—Alan Knight, Oxford University
“An important, accessible book on a difficult and significant subject.
City of Suspects will be warmly appreciated by historians of modern Mexico and historically-minded sociologists and political scientists who sympathize with Piccato’s ambition to keep crime and the state within the same field of inquiry.”—
William B. Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
I. The Context 13
1. The Modern City 17
2. The Policed City 34
3. The Construction of Mexican Criminology 50
II. The Practices 73
4. Honor and Violent Crime 77
5. Violence Against Women 103
6. Money, Crime, and Social Reactions to Larceny 132
III. The Consequences 161
7. The Invention of
Rateros 163
8. Penal Experience in Mexico City 189
Conclusions: Crime Contested 211
Appendix: Statistics of Crime 221
Notes 237
Bibliography 319
Index 349
