This course examines the transnational, national and local historical, social and political contexts that produce, and is in turn affected by, criminal, state and other forms of violence in Latin America, and the challenges that this poses for the functioning of Latin American democracies and for the everyday life of people in the region, whose human and civil rights are frequently violated. Examples of transnational factors examined may include the legacies of the Cold War, the impact of the U.S. war on drugs, and the circulation of ideas about punishment throughout the hemisphere. We also contextualize the presence of violence into the historical and contemporary political and social realities of particular Latin American countries.