Abstract
This chapter demonstrates how the Puerto Rican government, the Department of Public Safety, and US security agencies have used neoliberal legality and punitive governance to criminalized three important reactions to the economic crisis in the wake of the US imposition of the Puerto Rican Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA): (1) socio-environmental mobilizations; (2) anti-austerity mobilizations; and (3) anti-corruption mobilizations. To do so, the chapter proposes a twofold analysis. Firstly, it provides a brief overview of the PR’s economic and financial crisis, the proposed neoliberal solutions to the crisis, and the consequences of such solutions. By engaging with the development of neoliberal legality and punitive governance, this chapter shows that the state-violent reactions to socio-political mobilizations are part of a long history of criminalizing and repressive practices that must be understood against the backdrop of US colonial history in PR. That is, a long-lasting effort to discipline colonial subjects.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Issued under the Executive Order OE-2020-033 of April 12, 2020. This is the four extension, since March 15, 2020, of the shelter-at-place or stay-at-home order issued by the Puerto Rican Governor Wanda Vazquez.
- 2.
See Pulso estudiantil: https://twitter.com/pulsoest/status/1255992256651288576.
- 3.
As of 2 October 2020, the PR Police had issued a total of 3356 fines, while 1003 people have been arrested in connection with alleged curfew violations. See: https://www.metro.pr/pr/noticias/2020/10/02/1003-arrestos-por-violaciones-a-la-orden-ejecutiva-desde-el-inicio-del-toque-de-queda.html.
- 4.
Punitive governance also goes hand in hand with Gilmore’s (2007) binomial description of state power in neoliberal times as organized abandonment and organized violence. Organized abandonment is the direct consequence of the neoliberal policies and austerity measures implemented to address periods of economic crisis. These transformations of the welfare state into a police state and the generalization of organized violence against poor communities is what critical scholars have named neoliberal policing or punishment (Beckett and Herbert 2008; Cypher 2007; Harcourt 2010; LeBrón 2021; Lynch 2011; Wacquant 2009; Whitman 2011).
- 5.
- 6.
My utilization of the concept of colonial subject aims to go beyond Grosfoguel’s (2002) discussion of the location of PR within the modern/colonial world-system, and his engagement with coloniality of power and colonial difference. Thus, I am interested in analyzing how organized abandonment and neoliberal legalities have reshaped the ways in which the state and the criminal law deal with Puerto Ricans in the wake of the economic crisis.
- 7.
Created Law 20 of 2017 the Department of Public Safety became the umbrella agency for all the Puerto Rican security agencies.
- 8.
Section 936 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1976 (26 U.S. Code, 1976).
- 9.
Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle addressed a double jeopardy case, in which the Court argued that PR does not have a sovereignty different from that of the federal government when it comes to the power to criminally prosecute an accused.
- 10.
All the executive orders are available in: www.estado.pr.gov/es/ordenes-ejecutivas/.
- 11.
For a detailed analysis of the tactics and strategies implemented by the Students strikes see Pérez (2018).
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
Law 27 of 2017 was passed with the intention of criminalizing protests and putting limits on free expression in PR. With this law, protests in educational, health, and construction areas are criminalized, as well as the criminalization of student, worker, and socio-environmental movements.
- 16.
AES has been pointed as one of the corporations involved in the corruption scandal surrounding the Rosselló administration. In addition, this corporation has systematically violated local and federal environmental regulations. After multiple mobilizations and complaints, the PR legislature passed Law 40 of 2017, which gave AES additional power to continue with the toxic dumping of ashes. For more details on the case of AES (Rosa 2019).
- 17.
For more information see: https://casapueblo.org. Similarly, in Atiles (2014) I have shown how Casa Pueblo became a key organization in the struggles against environmental colonialism. Therefore, the criminalization of its leaders comes as a manifestation of the US and PR governments effort to thwart anticolonial mobilizations that challenged US colonialism in the archipelago.
- 18.
As a result of the devastation generated by hurricane María, PR holds the longest blackout in the history. See: https://witness.worldpressphoto.org/the-power-of-sin-luz-life-without-power-a86ab38a5e39.
- 19.
- 20.
For more details, see Diaz Torres (2020).
- 21.
Bank Popular is the biggest Puerto Rican bank and it is one of the leading players in the Puerto Rican debt crisis and has been implicated in multiple cases of corruption and state facilitated crimes (Bhatti and Sloan 2017).
- 22.
This led to the emergence of the Campaign to Audit the Debt. See also: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/336606-opinion-puerto-ricos-debt-must-be-audited-now.
- 23.
See Hedge Clipper (2018).
- 24.
- 25.
The resignation was effective on August 2. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/us/rossello-puerto-rico-governor-resigns.html.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
For an exposition of the rise of the public debt, see Merling et al. (2017).
References
Atiles, José. 2014. The Criminalization of Socio-environmental Struggles in Puerto Rico. Oñati Socio-Legal Series 4 (1): 85–103.
Atiles, José. 2016. Apuntes para abandonar el derecho: estado de excepción colonial en Puerto Rico [Notes to abandon the law: state of colonial exception in Puerto Rico.]. Cabo Rojo. PR: Editorial Educación Emergente.
Atiles, José. 2019. Jugando con el derecho: Movimientos Anticoloniales Puertorriqueños y la fuerza de Ley [Playing with the Law: Puerto Rican Anticolonial Movements and the Force of Law.]. Cabo Rojo: Editora Educación Emergente.
Atiles, José. 2021. The COVID-19 Pandemic in Puerto Rico: Exceptionality, Corruption and State-Corporate Crimes. State Crime Journal 10 (1): 104–125.
Atiles, José, and David Whyte. 2011. Counter-Insurgency Goes to University: The Militarisation of Policing in the Puerto Rico Student Strikes. Critical Studies on Terrorism 4 (3): 393–404.
Beckett, Katherine, and Steve Herbert. 2008. Dealing with disorder. Social control in the post-industrial city. Theoretical Criminology 12 (1): 5–30.
Bhatti, Saqib, and Carrie Sloan. 2017. Broken promise. PROMESA is a mode for undermining democracy and pushing austerity elsewhere in the U.S. ReFund America Project. http://www.refundproject.org/#puerto-rico.
Bonilla, Yarimar. 2020. Postdisaster Futures: Hopeful Pessimism, Imperial Ruination, and La futura Cuir. Small Axe 24 (2 [62]): 147–162.
Bonilla, Yarimar, and Marisol LeBrón. 2019. Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Bosque, Ramón, and Javier Colón. 2006. Puerto Rico under Colonial Rule: Political Persecution and the Quest for Human Rights. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Brown, Alleen. 2020. Energy Insurrection. The Intercept, February 9, 2020. https://theintercept.com/2020/02/09/puerto-rico-energy-electricity-solar-natural-gas/.
Brusi, Rima. 2011. The University of Puerto Rico: A Testing Ground for the Neoliberal State. NACLA Report on the Americas 44 (2): 7–10.
Brusi, Rima. 2019. Why Puerto Rico’s Cops Ignore the Constitution at Night. The Nation, July 30, 2019. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/puerto-rico-police-abuse/.
Carrasquillo, Gabriela. 2020. Cronología: caso contra estudiantes tras la huelga de la UPR en 2017 [Chronology: case against students after the UPR strike in 2017.]. Pulso estudiantil, February 5, 2020. https://pulsoestudiantil.com/cronologia-caso-contra-estudiantes-tras-la-huelga-de-la-upr-en-2017/.
Concepción, Carmen M. 1995. The Origins of Modern Environmental Activism in Puerto Rico in the 1960s. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19 (1): 112–128.
Cypher, James. 2007. From Military Keynesianism to Global Neoliberal Militarism. Monthly Review 59 (2): 37–55.
Díaz Torres, Rafael. 2020. Carpeteo y criminialización de la protesta, legado de Wanda Vázquez Garced [Carpeting and criminalization of protest, legacy of Wanda Vázquez Garced.]. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, August 29, 2020. https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2020/08/carpeteo-y-criminalizacion-de-la-protesta-legado-de-wanda-vazquez-garced/.
Davila, Juan. 2017. A People’s Recovery: Radical Organizing in Post-María Puerto Rico. The Indypendent, October 18, 2017. https://indypendent.org/2017/10/a-peoples-recovery-radical-organizing-in-post-María-puerto-rico/.
Dennis, A. 2020. Wall Street vultures razed COFINA, and now they’re coming for the central government. Eye on the Ties. https://news.littlesis.org.
Florido, Adrian. 2020a. Advocate For The Poor In Puerto Rico Is Released After Arrest During Protest. NPR, April 30, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/30/848684061/puerto-rico-police-arrest-advocate-for-the-poor.
Florido, Adrian. 2020b. ‘Mamá, I’m Still Hungry’: In Puerto Rico, Child Hunger Becomes a Flashpoint. NPR, May 13, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/854734386/mam-im-still-hungry-in-puerto-rico-child-hunger-becomes-a-flashpoint.
Garriga-Lopez, Adriana. 2020. Debt, Crisis, and Resurgence in Puerto Rico. Small Axe 24 (2[62]): 122–132.
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prison, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Go, Julian. 2020. The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback in the Early 20th Century. American Journal of Sociology 125 (5): 1193–1254.
Grosfoguel, Ramón. 2002. Colonial Subjects. Puerto Rican in Global Perspective. Oakland: University of California Press.
Harcourt, E. 2010. Neoliberal Penality: A Brief genealogy. Theoretical Criminology 14 (1): 74–92.
Hedge, Clippers. 2016. Pirates of the Caribbean. http://hedgeclippers.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/20161025_Hedgeclippers_ReportPR_v3-3.pdf.
Hedge, Clippers. 2018. The Golden Revolving Door. HedgePapers, August 21, 2018. http://hedgeclippers.org/hedgepaper-no-61-the-golden-revolving-door/.
Kilometro, Cero. 2018. Skill over force. A critical analysis of the use-of-force statistics of the Puerto Rico Police against the people. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3p2WlC_-VLibEJjc2pxZjZibWZvbGtBczNzdHVRS1JvNlU0/view?resourcekey=0-3Uqbodmkk8KLFVphsOMSxA.
Kilometro, Cero. 2019. Documentation on interventions and cases of use of force by the Puerto Rico Police Department during the #RickyRenuncia protests. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1--lPFG_XwMppj71-v45EHeSe5QuIq0gRTXlWvDBGbg4/edit#heading=h.2et92p0.
Kilometro, Cero. 2020. Documentación de intervenciones y casos de uso de fuerza de la Policía durante las protestas Wanda Renuncia [Documentation of police interventions and use of force cases during the Wanda Renuncia protests.]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FoPzYOVckahXGUl9MBba2QOzGcT3wblCouXNXxdGXXg/edit#heading=h.rgldnspa1ad3.
Kishore, Nishant et al. 2018. Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María. The New England Journal of Medicine.
Klein, Naomi. 2018. The Battle for Paradise. Puerto Rico takes on the Disaster Capitalists. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
Krippner, Greta. 2011. Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Lapavitsas, Costas. 2013. Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All. London and New York: Verso.
LeBrón, Marisol. 2017. Carpeteo Redux: Surveillance and Subversion against the Puerto Rican Student Movement. Radical History Review.
LeBrón, Marisol. 2019. Policing Life and Death. Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico. Oakland: University of California Press.
LeBrón, Marisol. 2021. Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua. Cabo Rojo: Editora Educación Emergente.
Lynch, Mona. 2011. Theorizing Punishment: Reflections on Wacquant’s Punishing the Poor. Critical Sociology 37 (2): 237–244.
Mazzei, P. 2018. Protest in Puerto Rico Over Austerity Measures Ends in Tear Gas. New York Times, May 1, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/us/puerto-rico-protests.html.
Mercado, Mario. 2016. Puerto Ricans’ Response to the Economic Crisis Rooted in Misinformation and Frustration. Counterpunch, August 9, 2016. https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/09/puerto-ricans-response-to-the-economic-crisis-rooted-in-misinformation-and-frustration/.
Merling, L. et al. 2017. Life After Debt in Puerto Rico: How Many More Lost Decades? Washington DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Morales, ed. 2019. Fantasy Island. Colonialism, Exploitation and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico. New York: Bold Type Books.
Mulligan, Jessica, and Adriana Garriga-Lopez. 2020. Forging Compromiso after the Storm: Activism as ethic of care among health care workers in Puerto Rico. Critical Public Health.
Negrón, Frances. 2020. Staying Alive in Puerto Rico. Latino Rebels, May 26, 2020. https://www.latinorebels.com/2020/05/26/stayingaliveinpuertorico/.
Onís, Catalina. 2018. Energy Colonialism Powers the Ongoing Unnatural Disaster in Puerto Rico. Frontiers in Communication 3 (2).
Onís, Catalina. 2021. Energy Islands. Metaphors of Power, Extractivism, and Justice in Puerto Rico. Oakland: University of California Press.
Onís, Catalina, Hilda Lloréns and Ruth Santiago. 2020. Puerto Rico’s Seismic Shocks. NACLA, January 15, 2020. https://nacla.org/news/2020/01/14/puerto-rico-earthquakes-renewable-energy.
Paralitici, Ché. 2011. La represión contra el independentismo puertorriqueño 1960–2010 [The repression against Puerto Rican independence 1960–2010.]. Río Piedras: Ediciones Gaviota.
Pérez-Lizasuain, César. 2018. Rebelión, no-derecho y poder estudiantil: la huelga de 2010 en la Universidad de Puerto Rico [Rebellion, non-right and student power: the 2010 strike at the University of Puerto Rico.]. Cabo Rojo: Editora Educación Emergente.
Poltevin, Rene Francisco. 2000. Political Surveillance, State Repression, and Class Resistance: The Puerto Rican Experience. Social Justice 27 (3): 89–100.
Robles, F. 2017. Puerto Rico’s University Is Paralyzed by Protests and Facing Huge Cuts. New York Times, May 25, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/us/puerto-ricos-university-is-paralyzed-by-protests-and-facing-huge-cuts.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0.
Rosa, Paola. 2019. Up from the ashes: Could a solar-powered uprising reshape Puerto Rico? Grist, September 25, 2019. https://grist.org/article/puerto-rico-applied-energy-systems-casa-pueblo/.
Santiago, R., C. Onís and H. Lloréns. 2020. Powering Life in Puerto Rico: The struggle to transform Puerto Rico’s flawed energy grid with locally controlled alternatives is a matter of life and death. NACLA Report on the Americas, 52 (2), 178–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2020.1768741.
Villanueva, Joaquin, and Marisol LeBrón. 2020. The Decolonial Geographies of Puerto Rico’s 2019 Summer Protest. Society and Space. https://www.societyandspace.org/forums/the-decolonial-geographies-of-puerto-ricos-2019-summer-protests-a-forum.
Wacquant, Loïc. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Whitman, James. 2011. Of Neo-Liberalism and Comparative Punishment. Critical Sociology 37 (2): 217–224.
Zambrana, Rocio. 2021. Colonial Debts. The Case of Puerto Rico. Duke University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Atiles, J. (2023). Disciplining Colonial Subjects: Neoliberal Legalities, Disasters, and the Criminalization of Protest in Puerto Rico. In: Radics, G.B., Ciocchini, P. (eds) Criminal Legalities and Minorities in the Global South. Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17918-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17918-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17917-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17918-1
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)