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This article examines the interactions between the public and private sectors in the process of increasingly endowing the Brazilian penal system with security technologies in the wake of a series of prison rebellions led by the "criminal group" Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). By discussing the discourses and rationales mobilized by politicians, legislators and businessmen within the scope of the Congressional Inquiry of the prison system established in 2008, the article shows that the growing presence of private capital into the Brazilian criminal justice system activates the technical and discursive connections between cost-effective surveillance and violent repression as the main strategies for prison management in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how the enslavement of free people was criminalized and tried in Brazil throughout the nineteenth century. Based on court cases from the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul pertaining to “reducing free persons to slavery,” we analyzed, in a preliminary way, the application of article 179 of the Brazilian Criminal Code of 1830. We draw attention to the profiles of the victims, the context in which the cases occurred, and the decisions taken. The cases have been divided into three groups, according to the circumstances of enslavement: the first concerns Africans brought to Brazil illegally, after the Atlantic slave trade was banned, as well as their descendants; the second comprises freedpersons whose manumissions were ignored for different reasons; and the third group is composed of free or freed blacks, who were kidnapped and sold as slaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the restorative justice system adopted by the Belgian law, and demonstrates the ways in which restorative mechanisms interact with the criminal justice system. Describes the initial difficulties faced in the early 1990s, during the first experiences with conflicts mediation in Belgium, as well as how they were overcome. At the end, from a critical perspective, designs possibilities for the adoption of restorative justice in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comparative perspective, the present paper examines contemporary research on the determinants of the length of criminal justice in the United States of America and Brazil. In opposition of this field in United States of America, in Brazil research on the criminal justice system is not well performed. In this sense, comparing these two lines of research will allow to analyze the possibilities and limitations that have not yet been addressed by national analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we analyze the innovation provided by the Juizado Especial Criminal (JECrim) within the Criminal Justice System in Brazil, as well as its effective operation – its practices and procedures – and the main characteristics of its discharge proceedings, based on the findings of the research on JECrim of Belo Horizonte/MG. This article consolidates the results of a set of both qualitative and quantitative research on this Judicial Institution, through the analysis of attitudes, values and beliefs of its members, as well as a systematic survey of the judicial flow of cases sentenced. The results point to the questioning of JECrim/BH as a relevant instance to resolve conflicts in Belo Horizonte, due to the long average time for the solution procedure of a typical case, given the strong bureaucracy implemented by the court as well as the prevalence of an overly formalistic legal culture along with their institutional actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]