Negros e pobres - um retrato da seletividade penal no sistema prisional brasileiro.

Abstract

This work will deal with institutional racism as one of the aspects of penal selectivity, starting from a socio-historical analysis of the Brazilian penitentiary system. The “criminal profile” was not built by criminals' predisposition to commit crimes, as Lombroso would have us believe in his positivist criminology. Ontologically, crime is multifactorial. And, in addition to the factors, penal selectivity breaks down minimum barriers and chooses those who will be punished based on racial and social criteria. These are all historical elements, factors that selected an “enemy” and this one has been carrying all the burdens arising from structural problems. Within this factual framework of exclusion, the black population is mostly marginalized, as racism within Brazilian society is structural and institutionalized. If black people are excluded from society, they end up as the main feature of prison. For this, a historical overview of colonialism to the present day will be made, on how the penitentiary system has always been shaped as an exercise of control over marginalized classes, especially over blacks, as a way of maintaining the social status and privileges that were acquired by the over centuries of exploitation of enslaved labor. To demonstrate that there is a maintenance of this heritage, in the penitentiary system, data from the Brazilian Yearbook of Public Security (2014) will be used, using critical criminology as a way to qualify these data. In conclusion, the work will have a proposal for confronting institutional racism, namely the promotion of public policies, especially affirmative actions, which have promoted the inclusion of blacks within the institutions of power, as a way to mitigate centuries of discrimination racial. Keywords: institutional racism; critical criminology; penal selectivity; affirmative action.