Violence has become a recurring problem in the Latin American agenda. However, the studies on citizen security continue to consider the technical perspectives more so than the political ones. In this context, the paper has a double theoretical goal. First, it aims to list a series of theoretic-political limitations that come up when elaborating a genealogy of academic discourse on citizen security. Second, it aims to overcome those limitations by proposing an analysis of violence and insecurity from the complex thought incorporating into the problem the parallel and additional activities that give a symbolic and real meaning to the materialization of the offense. Examples from Mexico and Argentina are given to illustrate the theoretical propose. The result is a twisted social scenery where violence is no longer an autonomous problem but the consequence of a greater affliction: the collapse of legality as a main value in social interactions.

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politicas publica - insegurança - segurança cidadã - América Latina