Neoliberalism vs. Bureaucracy : Evidence from Mass-Incarceration in Colombia

Over the past 30 years, Latin American countries have experienced an accelerated prison expansion, surpassing U.S. prison growth in the last decade. The literature explaining the Latin American prison boom has developed two theories around this phenomenon, the neoliberal theory and the state transformation theory. Despite the important contributions of scholars exploring these theories, they have not been causally tested. This paper provides the first causal evaluation of these theories on the expansion of the Latin American carceral state. Using Colombia as a case study, I show that adopting the criminal procedural adversarial model -associated with the state transformation theory- 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 primary driver of prison population growth. However, in contrast to the neoliberal theory, I show that increasing prosecutorial discretion does not cause a 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%