Jurists argue for alternatives to prison sentences
It is time for Brazil to reconsider incarceration as the authorities' only response to crime, jurists said Tuesday (Oct. 21) at the 22nd National Conference of Lawyers which is running in Rio de Janeiro until Thursday (23).
Renato de Vitto, director-general of the National Prison Department (DEPEN) of the Ministry of Justice, warned that “the country must look to new legal remedies before the prison population reaches the seven-digit scale.” Instead of jails, he recommended preventative action.
According to DEPEN, Brazil has the world's fourth largest prison population, with more than 581,000 inmates, behind only the United States (over 2 million); China (more than 1.7 million), and Russia (more than 674,000) (based on 2013 data). This means Brazilian facilities have reached 164 percent of their full capacity, with a shortage of 216,000 beds.
Maíra Fernandes, coordinator-general of the Forum of Penitentiary Councils, said that the Brazilian prison population would mount to 711 thousand if detainees in house arrest were to be included, and to 1 million if all arrest warrants issued by the courts were exercized. “Society only worries about this topic when there's tragedy [at the prison facilities] with impact in the media. This needs to change,” she argued.
She criticized the proposals aimed at putting an end to sentence progression, which allows the change from a closed to a semi-open or open regime, depending on the inmate's conviction and behavior. In Fernandes's view, there is a misconception that most detainees have committed serious crimes, when in reality they account for 64 thousand captives in the entire system, while 77 thousand were arrested for simple and aggravated theft, which, she believes, did not have to be penalized with imprisonment.
Among the urgent issues, she mentioned the situation of those sentenced to up to four years of incarceration, which corresponds to 10 percent of inmates, and the case of arrests under the Drugs Law, which total to 26 percent of prisoners: “There's a large number of [drug] users in jail because the amount of drugs that constitutes trafficking has not been defined. It's up to the police officer. After [the person arrested] is labeled as a drug trafficker at the police station, it's really difficult for the defense to change it,” she explained. Fernandes also talked about the social discrimination taking place when it comes to ascertaining who is a dealer and who is a user, which leads to those who live in impoverished areas or favelas being more criminalized.
Guilherme Calmon, supervisor at the System for the Execution of Socio-educational Measures of the National Justice Council (CNJ), highlights as recent advancements in the sector the so-called collective actions—which freed 42 thousand detainees from an irregular situation—and the National Forum for Penal Alternatives, created in 2014 for the exchange of experiences among magistrates.
Translated by Mayra Borges / Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: Jurists argue for alternatives to prison sentences
