A collection of essays that analyze the failures of criminal and carceral approaches to reduce gender violence, and show the counterproductive consequences of these measures. The authors seek to show that the criminal system not only does not guarantee victims what they supposedly want––the punishment of their aggressors––, but that this system can generate further social damage, even for the victims themselves. They provide concrete evidence of the adverse effects that the punitive paradigm in Mexico has had on those it intended to protect: women, girls, and other groups discriminated against based on gender.