Resumen

HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ, Celia  y  ORTIZ LAZCANO, Asael. The dearth penalty: its acceptance from social representation as a form of collective order. RIDE. Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ [online]. 2025, vol.16, n.31, e1020.  Epub 20-Abr-2026. ISSN 2007-7467.  https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v16i31.2774.

Throughout history, the death penalty has been part of many codes, both written and oral, in various human societies. However, over time, society itself has constructed a new understanding of the death penalty, and this, together the universalization of human rights, has led to its being questioned to the point that it has been abolished in many countries. This paper focuses on a quantitative survey aimed at understanding the perception of this penalty in the municipality of Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, and seeks to explain the acceptance of this obsolete punishment from the perspective of the theory of social representations. How can we explain that the death penalty has gained support in the 21st century? Everything seems to suggest that this is underpinned by the security crisis experienced throughout the country, which has forced society to rethink its understanding of the death penalty and human rights. The death penalty, having been practically abolished within the Mexican legal framework, now seems to be returning to the social imaginary as an alternative solution to the ongoing violence. The results show that residents of the municipality of Pachuca, Hidalgo, consider the death penalty justifiable for various types of offenses, such as crimes classified as serious. In this sense, society has developed an idealized view around the acceptance of the death penalty as a way to restore and maintain social order, justifying it as a means of control. Acceptance of the death penalty has been strengthened through social interaction; therefore, this research aims to interpret this social acceptance of the death penalty from the perspective of Serge Moscovici's theory of social representations, in order to elucidate how it is reinterpreted to seek that desired social order.

Palabras llave : death penalty; social representation; social imaginary; social order; serious crimes.

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