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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 10:23 pm
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Results for criminal justice systems (brazil)
2 results foundAuthor: Foley, Conor Title: Another Systems Is Possible: Reforming Brazilian Justice Summary: silent revolution is transforming the Brazilian justice system, challenging some of its most archaic practices through new innovations. These seek to provide a fairer, faster criminal justice service, but also to tackle the roots of violent crime. Changes are taking place at the constitutional, institutional, legislative and practical level. Many of the most creative innovations started locally before being scaled up to national projects. This book brings together some of the voices of those involved in the reform process to reflect on their own experiences and their wider applicability. The Brazilian justice system has rightly attracted international notoriety in the past because of the scale of its problems. However, the success stories contained in this book also show how reform is possible given political will. The process is ongoing and still faces enormous challenges. Brazil’s experiences of justice sector reform may be of direct relevance to other countries of similar levels of social, economic and political development and some of the projects described in this book may provide models that others can learn from. Details: London: International Bar Association, 2012. 192p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 23, 2013 at: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=60ad9251-7e9a-4e19-b275-410ea7319f5c Year: 2012 Country: Brazil URL: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=60ad9251-7e9a-4e19-b275-410ea7319f5c Shelf Number: 129493 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (Brazil) |
Author: International Bar Association. Human Rights Institute Title: One in Five: The crisis in Brazil’s prisons and criminal justice system Summary: The number of prisoners and pre-trial detainees in Brazil is rising rapidly and there is widespread agreement that the current criminal justice and penal system is dysfunctional. In November 2009, the National Council of Justice announced that out of the cases it has reviewed so far, one in five pre-trial detainees have been imprisoned irregularly, which suggest that the nationwide problem is extremely serious. The Brazilian criminal justice and penal system has been the subject of numerous expert reports denouncing its failings, and there have also been ad hoc attempts to deal with different aspects of its problems. The system also appears to violate Brazil’s own laws and constitutional provisions for the protection of human rights. While formally committing itself to extensive protection of the rights of its citizens, the Brazilian Government claims that hostility to the concept amongst its own officials and a large section of the public is one of the key impediments to criminal justice reform. The first section of this report provides a summary overview of numerous recent reports and studies by UN monitoring bodies as well as international and national human rights organisations into the violations of rights that are being perpetrated by and in the Brazilian penal system. The overall trend within the Brazilian criminal justice system is to sentence more defendants to prison than are being released, which has overwhelmed the capacity of the already overcrowded penal system – this looks set to continue. A huge backlog of cases has built up leading to increasing delays in the court system, and over 80 per cent of prisoners cannot afford a lawyer. Many people are imprisoned irregularly, spend years in pre-trial detention or remain in prison after the expiry of their sentence due to bureaucratic incompetence or systemic failings. Severe overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, gang violence and riots blight the prison system, where ill-treatment, including beatings and torture, are commonplace. Although the government has announced several reforms to tackle the problems identified, in practical terms little has changed over the last decade. This suggests that the failings are deep-rooted and systemic, so need to be addressed in a holistic way. The second section of this report describes the formal protection of human rights in the Brazilian criminal justice system, but also explains why these guarantees remain largely on paper. An understanding of why the Brazilian state appears to violate so many of the human rights that its own laws and Constitution guarantee requires some description of the historical political context in which the relationship between them developed. This took on a critical importance during the transition from dictatorship to democracy and its legacy continues to strongly influence Brazilian society and politics, with many Brazilians associating the transition to democracy with the large increase in violent crime that has occurred in the country. The third section focuses on the institutions constitutionally mandated to protect human rights within the Brazilian criminal justice system. While Brazil’s current Constitution and many of its laws provide extensive protection, the institutions charged with upholding these rights often fail to do so. This may be because many of these corporatist institutions remain largely unreformed from the dictatorship era and have sought to shield themselves from democratic scrutiny and control. The final section describes some of the local initiatives that have been undertaken to bring justice closer to the people in Brazil. An effective reform strategy must deal with the issue of criminal justice reform comprehensively. The problems regarding access to justice in pre-trial detention cannot be treated in isolation from the context of the crisis in the Brazilian criminal justice system, and the broader problem of tackling crime in society. Focusing on trying to fix one specific area, through new laws or the creation of new institutions, could make the current situation worse by adding fresh layers of bureaucracy and confusion to an already dysfunctional system. This report argues that more effort needs to be put into making the existing parts of the system work better together and encouraging the development of incremental, community-led and home-grown reform. Defensoria Pública is the body constitutionally-mandated to provide free legal assistance to those who need it, and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute strongly endorses the repeated calls that have been made for this to be strengthened. There are also a variety of other groups attempting to develop responses to the current crisis within their criminal justice system. Supporting their creative ingenuity to ‘find a way around the obstacles that exist’ (jeitinho brasileiro) should be an essential part of the reform process. Details: London: International Bar Association, 2010. 63p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 23, 2013 at: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=D4CBAA59-1F9B-41B0-92CA-1B964AC29AC9 Year: 2010 Country: Brazil URL: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=D4CBAA59-1F9B-41B0-92CA-1B964AC29AC9 Shelf Number: 129494 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformCriminal Justice Systems (Brazil)Pretrial DetentionPrisonersPrisons |