Bio coming soon more here.
The two murals above adorn the walls of the police station of Portugesa’s state police force, succinctly capturing the current juxtaposition of two very different models of security in Venezuela. The first mural encapsulates well the traditional model of policing in...
The mural above–dedicated to the victims of police abuse–adorns a main wall of the new civilian-run policing university in Caracas, carrying with it a quote by Raquel Aristimuño, whose son was killed by the police here in 1992. The mural serves as a reminder of...
[Moderator’s note: Over the coming weeks we will be running a series of posts examining the different elements of the Chávez government’s efforts at citizen security reform. -DS] Since 2009 the Chávez government has carried forward a comprehensive police reform that...
The voting centers I visited in Los Magallanes de Catia were calm and peaceful all day, despite the fact that one center opened almost an hour and a half late due to tardy witnesses at the voting tables. Lines at all of the centers I went to were extremely long....
A few nights ago I opened up my laptop and sat down with Adriana, a “vocera” (spokesperson) of the now largely defunct “consejo comunal” (community council) on my street, who I lived with in 2010 and 2011. She had asked me to help her fill out another online form to...
This is the first of a series of notes from the field that Rebecca Hanson will be posting. The goal is to provide a feel for the dilemmas and problems faced by residents of the popular barrio where she is doing fieldwork, and a sense of their perspectives and...