Reforms of Criminal Justice in Brazil – The Unfinished Democratization

Abstract

This article discusses the penal reforms in Brazil in the context of an unfinished democratization process, in which violence and selectivity of state mechanisms of crime control are still the most striking feature of the penal system. From the diagnosis of increased incarceration, linked to the large number of pre-trial detainees and convicted of drug trafficking, and a presentation of the structure of the crime control field in Brazil, from the formal point of view, it discusses the importance of enactment of Law 12.403 / 2011, known as the Law of Precautionary Measures in Criminal procedure, the legal field resistance to the application of alternatives to provisional detention, and the recent implementation of custody hearings as control mechanism to police discretion and violence and limitation of abuse of the punitive power.