Introduction

This brief introduction presents the central idea of the book, its main concepts and its structure in three parts. The aim of the book is to make visible the links which often remain invisible between deregulative economic policies at the global level and their negative violent impact at the local level in Latin America. This link is explained through the case studies briefly presented in this introduction. Maldevelopment as a consequence is explained as a complex category which will be taken as base for the development of a new conceptual category in criminology.