During the 1990s, Latin America experienced a criminal procedural revolution (LACPR) when approximately 70% of its countries abandoned their inquisitorial system and adopted the U.S. adversarial model. Followed the LACPR, the region experienced a dramatic increase in crime, consolidating it as...

A recurring debate in the literature on crime control is whether an increase in the probability of punishment is a more effective deterrent than an increase in the severity of the sanction. This paper further explores this issue in the context of crime in Colombia. We use a natural policy...