Abstract

SPECKMAN GUERRA, Elisa. Undesirables and Other Fearful Subjects: Dangerousness Without Crime and Social Defense (Mexico, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Hist. mex. [online]. 2024, vol.73, n.3, pp.1081-1124.  Epub Jan 22, 2024. ISSN 2448-6531.  https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v73i3.4698.

The concept of dangerousness refers to the predisposition to commit crime on the part of subjects who have not committed crimes or have not reoffended, a predisposition that is not evaluated through their infractions or previous actions (not even in possible cases of recidivism), but through their lifestyle and physical-psychic characteristics. The theory of dangerousness was therefore supported by doctrinal currents (the positivist school of law, organic and social determinism, degenerationism, mental hygiene), studies of the bad life in large cities and prejudices and fears involving social class or ethnic groups. It also offered the possibility of identifying a criminal before they commit a crime and, under the logic of social defense, applying sanctions or measures to prevent it (measures proposed or accepted included sterilization or banishment, even imprisonment or therapeutic internment). Catalogs of the dangerous, the scope of the concept and the measures accepted or contemplated for the dangerous (whether they had never committed crimes or already completed their sentences) varied according to the time and place. This article studies the Mexican case from 1890 to 1960, the period in which this theory had its greatest theor etical and institutional presence. It incorporates judicial and criminological studies, their influence on legislation and legislative projects and, to a lesser extent, judicial sentences and police practices. It therefore makes use of a variety of approaches to a practically unstudied issue that has connections to social and cultural history, as well as to the history of criminal law and its application.

Keywords : dangerousness; social defense; undesirability; vagrancy; criminal law.

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