Unravels criminal dynamics and the relations (and confrontations) with the nation-state in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Organized crime is everywhere: Where governments draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways to cross it; where governments fail to meet human needs, criminal actors profit from their desire or desperation. In Latin America, the armed forces are doing less national defense work and more public security work. In the contemporary environment, fragile states and criminal challenges to them are changing long-standing views of authority and legitimacy. State authority and tradition are diminished, if not lost, in areas under the territorial control of criminal armed groups. In areas experiencing crime, wars, and criminal insurgency, the result is a turbulent vacuum characterized by insecurity, where violence often reigns. This volume brings together specialists and researchers on issues related to security, criminality, drug trafficking, and criminal gangs, providing new perspectives on the legal frameworks and the militarization of law enforcement toward armed criminal groups in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Police, justice, and security-sector reform are also discussed while also analyzing the power and counterpower competition that this criminality is contesting with the nation-state.