Police Reform in Mexico and Latin America
September 20, 2011 - 4:00 pm
Mark Ungar, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center
Mark Ungar’s recent book, Policing Democracy: Overcoming Obstacles to Citizen Security in Latin America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), and his current work with Mexico’s federal police discuss the challenges faced by police reform efforts in Latin America.
Discussant:
Desmond Arias, John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY
Moderator:
Ken Erickson, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY
About the Speakers:
Mark Ungar is professor of political science at Brooklyn College and of the Criminal Justice Doctoral Program and the Liberal Arts Masters Program of the CUNY Graduate Center. He has written and edited four books and about 30 articles and book chapters on judicial reform, citizen security and policing. He has worked as an advisor to the United Nations, the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and Mexico. He also works with human rights organizations, serving on a policy committee of Amnesty International USA and of civil rights groups in Venezuela. He has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the CUNY Research Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.
Desmond Arias is professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. He is also a member of the faculty of the doctoral program in Criminal Justice at the Graduate Center. His research focuses on security and politics in developing societies. His research on criminal organization, human rights, and democratic order is based on field work in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Kingston, Jamaica, and Medellín, Colombia.
