This new research project examines the adoption of tough-on-crime policies in Uruguay in the last decade, and how these policies have increased state violence in low-income communities and Uruguay’s Afro-descendant population. Much of the literature on the adoption of tough-on-crime policies in Latin America highlights the surge of right-wing populist governments as central to the rise of these policies. However, in the case of Uruguay, this shift was produced by a social-democratic government, which had strong electoral support before the adoption of this approach.