Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article proposes an analysis of the results of the consultation process with imprisoned population, conducted by teachers, researchers, and students from the University of Costa Rica in the framework of the 2018 political campaign. We organize our results in terms of (1) the political meaning of carrying out a participatory process and a debate with presidential candidates within the national prison context; (2) the dissociation of the political projects proposed in the campaign from the realities faced by persons deprived of liberty, and (3) the conditions of (im)possibility for the exercise of citizenship during a political-electoral context mediated by punitivist and conservative political discourses. We move between the analysis of the content of the questions, the reconstruction of contexts and the review of specialized literature to articulate our arguments. Placing the analytical lens in prison contexts, we take the insights proposed by the participants and problematize the generalized character with which the discussion on politics, democracy and citizenship is traditionally approached during elections. We argue that, in this generalization, the complex power relations that make that, in effect, not all people have the same possibilities to fully exercise our fundamental rights are made invisible.

This article analyzes the different forms of institutional intervention in minors during their release following the culmination of their prison sentence. We analyze the different actions or omissions present in the institutional intervention (educational area, labor area, support, or family networks) that are carried out by the Specialized Young Adult Center and the Zurquí Youth Training Center, focusing on programs that have a role oriented to the accompaniment during their release phase, such as the National Program of Attention to the Juvenile Prison Population and the Social Insertion Unit. The article also analyzes other institutional interventions in the release phase that are being developed through Social Action initiatives at the University of Costa Rica. This piece is based on in-depth interviews conducted between 2021 and 2022, to government official experts in juvenile prison and social insertion. It is concluded that in the institutional intervention during the release phase there is a gap in the understanding of ideological and political elements at the structural level of the prison system, which is reflected in a violent and disjointed execution of the release phase.

ln the first part of the 21st century, a wave of populist governments has swelled in Latin America. The academic literature has focused on studying the characteristics of populist leaders and on the implications of this phenomenon for democracies, leaving aside an analysis of the groups that accompany and support such figures. This article aims to fill this gap by conducting a comparative analysis of the trajectory and characteristics of the people serving in the cabinets of three presidents: Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. The conclusion of this study is that, in all three cases, these leaders resorted to people with a political background to make up their cabinets, thus challenging the notion of a break with traditional political elites. Nevertheless, the political context in which they came to power has a bearing on the characteristics of the group of people they have relied on to form their governments.

This article aims to critically analyze the paradigm of citizen security in Costa Rica, predominant in recent decades, in light of Cornelius Castoriadis's theory of the social imaginary. Specifically, some of the symbolic and material implications that its implementation has had are shown, emphasizing how the social meanings about the subject that embodies insecurity are reflected in the implementation of public policies on citizen security, and stopping at the media dynamics that (re)produce them. Finally, it addresses how this imaginary reinforces the territorial stigmatization of people from urban-marginalized neighborhoods, and how this deepens processes of urban social exclusion, reproducing a circularity between punitiveness, stigmatization, and exclusion. Methodologically, the article draws on the review of secondary sources on the security issue in Costa Rica at the end of the 20th century and early 21st century, through which three concepts that guide the argument are defined: imaginary of (in)security, criminal subject, and territorial stigmatization. This work is expected to contribute to the reflection on comprehensive and inclusive alternatives that respect the complexity of the social and economic dynamics linked to the phenomenon of crime and citizen insecurity.

Linguistic evaluation is used to construct the speaker's attitudes and feelings, and its study allows us to discern the relations of cooperation, conflict and negotiation that contribute to the construction of opinions. In the 2018 electoral context, this can offer a new perspective to understand the profile of Costa Rican citizens, their beliefs, political positions, and motivations. This work analyzes citizen attitudinal representations about different political actors involved in the 2018 Elections based on interviews conducted throughout the country. Men and women from different geographical areas, ages, educational levels, and political affiliations were included in the sample. Using the linguistic categories of the attitude system of the appraisal theory, we analyzed the participants' evaluative utterances about different political actors, including first and second round candidates, Fabricio Alvarado, Carlos Alvarado, citizens, candidates' supporters, the political class, the government, and political participation. For the most part, attitudinal representations identified were overwhelmingly negative: voters for the Citizens’ Action Party (PAC) were less negative and more frequently included positive aspects, while abstentionists were abundantly negative and used dehumanizing resources. It stands out that, despite the highly polarizing political scenario, the dissatisfaction and general discomfort towards the political actors in the 2018 Elections is shared by all. Once again, Costa Ricans found themselves in a scenario where they did not vote for someone, but in spite of someone.

This article provides an exploration, from an architectural lens, about the impact caused by the physical conditions of prison nurseries in children from ages zero to three who co-reside with their incarcerated mothers, specifically in the Módulo Materno Infantil (Maternal Child Module) of the CAI Vilma Curling Rivera. The current architectural conditions of this module are evaluated and the spatial characteristics that would strengthen infant-mother bonds, nurturing and early stimulation are researched, reducing the feelings of confinement, control and living behind bars. It is concluded that the massive scale of the penitentiary spaces, as well as the acoustic, climatic, sensorial, and lighting conditions, offer a depersonalized and hyper-stimulating experience. It identifies the need to break down the spaces into more intimate niches, with greater attention to textures, materialities, child scale and ergonomics of surfaces and furniture that allow to raise the degree of independence, self-esteem, and quality of life of its users.

This article analyzes the difficulties of employment in the Juvenile Criminal Population (PPJ), the product of the structural problem of unemployment, the lack of the State to make effective what is established in public policies, the situation of vulnerability and discrimination produced by the setbacks they face as age group and the implications of the penal sanction. This article is developed as a descriptive documentary research, supported by the process of preparing the Final Graduation Work "Decent employment and new opportunities: construction of a network of key actors for employment, in favor of the Juvenile Criminal population of the Alternative Sanctions Program”. The analysis exposes the importance of intervening in decent employment opportunities for the PPJ as part of adequate social integration, as established by the Penitentiary Policy, and the relevance of employment, from the economic-material point of view, and its significance in the emotional, family, and social areas. It is concluded that the opportunity for decent employment reduces social exclusion, favoring the desistance of criminal life, given the transformations of current work and its influence on social organization; however, to generate these opportunities, awareness-raising processes are necessary, both for the employer population and for the population in general, which allow the PPJ to be de-stigmatized since they experience a series of stereotypes, internalized by the person and accepted as part of their identity, which limits their possibilities for personal development.

The purpose of this research is to contrast at the cantonal level, the social foundations of voting and abstentionism in the most recent elections for mayors and for president of the republic, in 2020 and 2018 respectively. At the beginning, seeking to provide context for both elections, this article analyzes the evolution of support for Costa Rican democracy and the development of municipal institutions since the first mayoral election in 2002. The study concludes that socially and regionally there is a great difference between the two elections. The two parties that won the presidential elections are different from the two that won the mayors’ elections. And within each cantonal vote, its composition is opposite. While in 2018 the vote for the National Liberation Party (PLN) was associated only with a dimension of social development, social integration, in 2020 these two variables are not associated, but it was negatively associated with the level of education and essential infrastructure. The Christian Social Unity Party (PUSC), which in 2018 was positively associated with social development indicators, in 2020 there were no important associations, that is, it is a different PUSC. Regarding abstentionism, it follows opposite patterns regionally and socially. It was found that those cantons with the greatest lag in terms of human development are, in turn, the cantons with institutionally weaker municipalities. For this reason, the capacity of the decentralization reform to reduce the marked cantonal inequality is questioned.

The present number arises from the research experiences of, mostly, students who, within the framework of their academic training processes in different disciplinary areas of the UCR. They converge in the identification of both a knowledge gap and a social and institutional urgency to understand and transform the security, justice and punishment system in the country. The contributions mark a milestone in the state of knowledge on the subject, providing an interdisciplinary approach to various aspects of this complex institutional arrangement. The balance is dark and opaque. The former, because the state of the situation reflected in the empirical research and the analysis of the studies exposes a wide and acute crisis. The latter, because to investigate and study this intricate and dynamic system, an institutional dimension of a less and less transparent state, is a methodological challenge that little by little becomes a social and a political one.

This paper presents a critical analysis of the punitive approach adopted by Costa Rica in the last decades. Using data of the impact that this has had on the prison system, the authors reflect on some legal reforms that show that, rather than have created comprehensive policies to address deep social problems such as gender violence or drug trafficking, they have been used as a symbolic resource of the tough on crime policies. Lastly, they offer a different view of the possibility to continue to incorporate punitive responses other than imprisonment in the country given the results that these seem to demonstrate in terms of recidivism.