Media Advisory

UF Expert on Venezuela

Rebecca Hanson

Assistant Professor

Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Sociology, Criminology, and Law

Research Interests: Crime and Citizen Security; Political Sociology; Urban Sociology; Policing; Social Movements and Citizen Participation; Gender; Latin America; Qualitative Methods

Dr. Hanson has conducted research on participatory democratic neighborhood experiments, socialist ideology in Venezuela, civilian police reform, police militarization and its impacts on organized crime, and community policing. She is currently collaborating on a field experiment that tests the effects of police–community meetings and the provision of information on citizens' trust in and collaboration with the police in Medellín, Colombia. Dr. Hanson's other area of research analyzes sexual harassment and ethnographic fieldwork. Dr. Hanson has extensive experience writing on violence, crime, and policing in the Global South for public policy outlets, publishing in venues such as NACLA, Insight Crime, the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy in Focus and the Washington Office on Latin America’s blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights. Dr. Hanson’s book, Citizen (In)Security, Policing, and Violent Pluralism in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, traces the implementation and outcomes of democratic police reform during the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Her scholarly publications can be read in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Crime, Law, and Social Change, Sociological Forum, and REVISTA M. Estudos sobre a Morte, os Mortos e o Morrer.​

Phone: 352-294-7191

Email: r.hanson@ufl.edu  

Personal Website: www.rebeccahansonsoc.com/