Multimedios

The murder of women has a name: femicide. In Latin America, femicide is particularly common, but women there are starting to stand up for their rights. The filmmaker Paula Rodriguez Sickert has traveled through the Andean countries of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru and tells the stories of women who were attacked or killed because they wanted to live their lives their own way.

Brazil's defense minister has announced a new phase of security operations in Rio de Janeiro that will involve a massive military deployment, a strategy often used throughout Latin America that has repeatedly failed to produce long-term improvements.

Conventional crime-prevention programs tend to be expensive, onerous, and ineffective. Could something as simple (and cheap) as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) do the trick? That’s the question we try to answer in this episode. It’s set in Chicago, where violent crime continues to thrive (its homicide rate is more than triple New York’s). Chicago is also home to the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago, a network of researchers who try to find empirical solutions to crime and violence.

Affected for Life promotes awareness of human trafficking. The film is targeted at prosecutors, judges, law enforcement officers and other specialized audiences, and illustrates the elements and different forms of human trafficking. The film is available in both full-length and abbreviated versions in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

My research on police reform in Latin America shows that such reforms are highly vulnerable to political reversals. These cases reveal how they can be quickly rolled back before they can take hold and demonstrate results. Understanding the politics of police reform in Latin America may be informative for those who hope for changes in policing in the U.S.