2023
Beatriz Magaloni
Society’s responses to crime by making the police in Mexico and Brazil less violent, as well as addressing the causes of violent crime.
Magaloni was honoured for her research that clarifies how police organisations can be influenced by populist demands for harsh police methods, which often lead to rule of law violations and an increase in violence in the community. Her studies, mainly in Mexico and Brazil, have shown that police militarisation and the use of torture do nothing to improve public safety, but they certainly undermine human rights. She has also shown that legislative reform in Mexico reduced the use of torture in police interrogations and improved transparency in the legal system.Beatriz Magaloni
Born 1968 in Mexico. Beatriz Magaloni was professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (United States) at the time of the award.
Showed that populist demands for harsh police methods increase, rather than decrease, violence in most of the poverty areas tested.Showed that populist demands for harsh police methods increase, rather than decrease, violence in most of the poverty areas tested.
Police violence can be reduced in Latin America
Beatriz Magaloni was awarded the 2023 Stockholm Prize in Criminology for her research on police violence and how it can be reduced.
Through her research, Magaloni has identified concrete measures to address lawlessness and violence, whether committed by criminal gangs or state authorities. She has shown how violence, poverty and social vulnerability are mutually reinforcing. Her evidence shows that society’s struggle with these issues can both exacerbate and reduce the violence, depending on how the methods to do so are designed and deployed.
Shedding light on complex police operations
Magaloni has shown that police organisations are vulnerable to populist demands for harsh police methods that violate the rule of law. In the long run, she suggests, such policies will increase violence in society. Her extensive research in Mexico and Brazil shows that public support for police militarisation can threaten human rights without increasing public safety. Magaloni’s work clearly demonstrates the complexity of policing and specifies the many dangers of applying simple solutions to complex problems.
Surveyed police work in the favelas
Trained as a lawyer in Mexico and a political scientist in the United States, Magaloni has initiated criminological research into police behaviour in Latin American countries. In her studies of policing methods in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, she analysed what occurred in some 100 gang-controlled favelas when the military police who had been operating there were replaced: by other, non-military police officers who were meant to stay in the community and build relationships. The military police, wearing protective equipment and toting machine guns, had literally invaded areas, killed many people, and then left.
Magaloni’s research showed that replacing the Brazilian military police with police who would be staying in the community and building relationships was effective in around 60 per cent of the favelas. Lethal police violence decreased an average of 45 per cent. Crime also decreased and trust in the police increased.