Neoliberalism Vs Bureaucracy: Evidence from Mass-Incarceration in Colombia

Over the past 30 years, Latin American countries have experienced an accelerated prison expansion, surpassing the U.S. prison growth in the last decade. The literature explaining the Latin American prison boom has focused on theoretical accounts without empirically testing whether the factors identified causally impacted incarceration rates in the region. This paper provides the first empirical evaluation of the theories on expanding the Latin American carceral state. Using Colombia as a case study, I show that adopting an adversarial criminal procedural model caused an increase in the prison population of 30%, remarkably increasing the male convicted population in prison by 32%. I identify the introduction of plea bargaining as the main driver of prison population growth. However, in contrast to existing theory, I show that increasing prosecutorial discretion does not cause more punitive use of prison because it allows prosecutors to include non-legal factors to offer plea agreements. Specifically, I show that the introduction of plea-bargaining decreased the female incarceration rate by 25%.