Functional and Transgressive Canonisations

Today we are witnessing an upsurge in criminal behaviour by criminal gangs in diverse contexts such as narco-terrorism in Mexico and juvenile delinquency in the marginalised neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Many of these delinquents are devotees of saints such as San La Muerte, Frente Vital, Gauchito Gil, San Nazario and Jesús Malverde. Is there a religion of crime? What is the function of these saints for criminal morality? Can we speak of criminal saints? In this book we will see how the experience of the sacred, a product of the emergence of drug-trafficking institutions and transgressor saints, becomes a criminogenic factor that influences criminal behaviour and allows access to a morality different from the dominant morality, legitimising the criminal ethos. To this end, we will analyse the forms of worship, iconography and mythography of the different saints and their relationship with crime, taking as a starting point the process of canonisation that began in Late Antiquity. This analysis will allow us to incorporate the experience of the sacred as a factor to be taken into account when designing crime prevention programmes.