MILITARIZATION AND PENAL ALTERNATIVES: antagonistic strategies for crime control in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to present a theoretical model formulated based on an agenda of empirical research on conflict management in Brazil. Focusing specifically on the field of crime control in Brazil, we argue that it has been contested by four major strategies: the militarized-inquisitorial, the classical, the preventive, and the alternative penal strategies. The various strategies in place shape quite distinct ways of dealing with social conflicts and are in dispute. Although some are more prominent in some contexts, favored by specific sociopolitical configurations, they do not prevent resistance. In this article, we will focus on two of these strategies: the militarized and the alternative penal strategies. The militarized strategy was reinforced from 2012 onwards in São Paulo state policies and in 2016 in federal policy, with the action of the military police and the use of the Armed Forces to guarantee law and order. As an example of an alternative penal strategy on the rise in Brazil, we have restorative justice, strengthened by democratic governments and more heterodox models of professionalization in the field of Law. Governments with authoritarian characteristics threaten this model of justice, but it resists with the support of a significant portion of civil society, highlighting how there are practices that impose barriers to the advance of militarization that seeks hegemony in the treatment of conflicts.