Bureaucratic regimes and state languages: the politics of statistical criminal records on violent deaths in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires

• Published in: Revista de sociologia e política 2011-01, Vol.19 (40), p.59-81
• Main Authors: Miranda, Ana Paula Mendes de, Pita, Maria Victoria
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Subjects: Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Criminality; Death; Indexes (Measures); Languages; Local Politics; Metropolitan Areas; Offenders; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Skills
• ISSN: 0104-4478
• DOI: 10.1590/S0104-44782011000300006

This article emerges from our interest in producing a comparable data base for the metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Our research reveals the need to identify the technical processes and political skills that, in Brazil and Argentina, give rise to particular modes of producing information on criminality. This, in turn, requires fleshing out the particular conditions that, in each case, turn official criminal data into the object of political disputes, and lead to intra- and inter-institutional conflicts -- as well as turning it into the stuff of 'public opinion', as the debate on public safety moves up on the list of public agenda priorities. This approach enables us to conclude that the figures speak more about the institutions that produce them than about criminality or violent deaths in the Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires metropolitan regions per se. Therefore, in this article, we try to show that creating comparable data for metropolitan regions as near and as far Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro demands its part- by- part examination and disaggregation. Only then can data be compared and read as an indicator of violent forms of conflict resolution. Adapted from the source document.