Listen to the ghosts of Pinochet

Cautionary Criminology in Comics

Abstract

This article aims to answer the question “can comic books support criminological criticism of punitive power?”. To this end, the work in hand makes use of a bibliographical review of the work of Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, taking into account the foundations of his “cautionary criminology”, as well as an analysis of the graphic novel, “Los Fantasmas de Pinochet”, by Félix Vega and Francisco Ortega. In addition, the article deals with the issue of cautionary criminology and the “words of the dead” that should underpin it from an artistic work, specifically, a graphic novel that seeks to do justice to the victims of the massacre that took place in 20th century Chile. We therefore conclude that Vega and Ortega's work is an important “spokesperson” for the words of the dead, providing criminology with data on the fatal victims of a massacre, while at the same time pointing out the crimes committed by Augusto Pinochet and his military dictatorship, making remembrance a means of preventing massacres. The article thus opens up a space for analyzing Latin American history through comic books, while also opening up criminology to the words of the dead through artistic interpretation.