Javier Wilenmann

Doctor Juris (summa cum laudae) from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2013.
Bachelor of Legal and Social Sciences, Universidad de Chile

Professor Wilenmann is the director of CIDS. His research focuses on the penal system, with special dedication to its institutional configuration and to the interaction between state policy, culture and the formal system in the evolution of the work practices and organization of its actors. Likewise, Professor Wilenmann investigates the relationships between law and organization and between law and social movements. Among the representative products of these lines of research are:

Neoliberal politics and state modernization in Chilean penal evolution (in Punishment & Society 2020)
Framing meaning through criminalization (in New Criminal Law Review 2019)
Contesting authority in the crisis of neoliberalism: the Chilean Spring and the mobilization of human rights frames (to be published in Boutcher, Shdamaiah and Yarbourough, Research Handbook on Law and Social Movements, Elgar Publishing 2021)
Managing mass crime in Santiago (working paper)

At CIDS, Professor Wilenmann participates in the Law and Territory projects; Organization of the penal system; and Legal Academy.

Javier Wilenmann

Publications

Wilenmann, J., Larroulet, P., Arriagada, I., & Sozzo, M. (2025). Against the Latin American Current? Conditions and Mechanisms of Decarceration in Chile. International Criminology, 1-18.

Wilenmann, J. (2025). Judicial Immunity: A South American Approach. In Transitional Justice and the Criminal Responsibility of Judges (pp. 109-118). Routledge.

Wilenmann, J., & del Fierro Baraona, N. (2024). International overlap of prosecutorial competences in corporate criminal liability cases. Pro Jure Law Review, (63), 111-132.

Wilenmann, J., Larroulet, P., & Arriagada, I. (2024). The decline of incarceration in Chile: A study on the behavior of the Chilean penal system and its impact on the prison population. Criminal Policy, 19(37), 354-385.

Wilenmann, J., & Gambardella, M. (2023). A developmental model of sentencing evolution: The emergence of the politics of probation in Chile. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 62(1), 81-101.

Wilenmann, J., & Arístegui Spikin, J. P. (2022). Processing of minor offenses in Chile. Law Review (Valdivia), 35(2), 273-295.

Sepulveda, C., & Wilenmann, J. (2022). Structuring prosecutorial power. Legal Studies, 42(4), 680-695.

Wilenmann, J. (2020). Neoliberal politics and state modernization in Chilean penal evolution. Punishment & Society, 22(3), 259-280.

Feddersen, M., Wilenmann, J., Cavieres, J., Gambardella, M., & Rochow, D. (2025). "The state is something that disappoints": Legal consciousness amid institutional dissatisfaction. Law & Society Review, 59(1), e35-e63.

Feddersen, M., Wilenmann, J., Cavieres, J., & Gambardella, M. (2024). "The state is something that disappoints": legal consciousness amid institutional dissatisfaction. Law & Society Review, 58(1), 69-94.

Wilenmann, J., & Feddersen, M. (2023). Contesting authority in the crisis of neoliberalism: The Chilean Spring and the mobilization of human rights frames. In Research Handbook on Law, Movements and Social Change (pp. 391-406). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Wilenmann, J., Gil, D., & Tschorne, S. (2023). "It Now Exists": The Birth of the Chilean Professional Legal Academia in the Wake of Neoliberalism. Law & Social Inquiry, 48(3), 971-998.

Wilenmann, J., Feddersen, M., Gambardella, M., & Cavieres, J. (2022). The Chilean institutional crisis and the foreignness of law. Latin American Legal Studies, 10(2), 231-279.