Abstract

ALVAREZ VALDEZ, Jesús Eleonary  and  DELGADILLO GUZMAN, Leonor Guadalupe. Analysis of criminal recidivism in terms of prescriptive social representations. Cultura representaciones soc [online]. 2017, vol.11, n.22, pp.220-248. ISSN 2007-8110.

Some of the most important problems that Mexican society faces are violence and insecurity as the result of delinquency. Public policy has given priority to persecution and detention, and has left the responsibility of the elimination of criminal acts to the penitentiaries which try to reinsert criminals into society. However, due to the limitations of the system, this task is difficult to achieve since it entails delinquent re-incidence which sometimes ends up as a lifestyle for criminals. This research focuses on the action of delinquency and its repetition, and the cognitive structures that underlie the crime. The social representation theory developed by Abric (2001) was used, since he points out the existence of prescriptive social representations (self-actions, actions developed by others and the context) arranged in a central and peripheral structure. The empirical process follows Rodriguez’s method (2007) which recommends the use of interviews and Thematha as the main access to the study of the structure of social representations. Following this recommendation 10 interviews were carried out with interns of the Santiaguito social rehabilitation preventive center. All participants admitted having committed some delinquent act. In order to establish a comparison, five first time delinquents and five reoffending delinquents were selected. The analysis of the interviews enables us to determinate the central structures in each one of the prescriptive representations, highlighting the configuration of the victims (social representation of others) which don’t represent interest or importance. The obtained results explain part of the delinquency re-incidence.

Keywords : delinquency; re-incidence; social representation.

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