Encarceramento e Sistema Penal: crescimento da população carcerária e individualização da pena no Brasil de 1985 a 2015

Abstract

Prison overcrowding and high levels of prison population growth affect many countries in different regions of the world. Brazil has presently the third biggest prison population, after the United States and China, and our imprisionment rates growth outline the regional average. In such context, superpopulation and human rights violations resulting from poor conditions in detention unities have developed to a serious structural problem, which will not be solved through paliative short term mesures.The purpose of this work is to investigate if and how decisions made on the many levels of the criminal justice system may have contributed to the Brazilian incarceration rates growth between 1985 and 2015. The research question is answered through analisesof legislative reforms and changes in judicial and prosecutorial practices as well as previous empirical studies concerning the effects of legislative inovations on sentencing practices, especially the 1984 Penal Reform and legislation introduced during the following decades. The study aims mainly at sentencing rules, community sentences and the limits of juditial discretion in the evalutation of the acused’s personal circunstances. The study concludes with sugestions for reducing prison population, through the improvement of legislation concerning sentencing rules, community sanctions and early release.