Disciplining Colonial Subjects: Neoliberal Legalities, Disasters, and the Criminalization of Protest in Puerto Rico

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.