https://revbaianaenferm.ufba.br/index.php/rasf/issue/feed 2026-06-01T00:00:00+00:00 Editoria da Revista Antropologia Sem Fronteiras revistaasf@ufba.br Open Journal Systems <p>Continuous-flow electronic journal edited by the Graduate Program in Anthropology at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), aimed at promoting the publication of original works in all fields of Anthropology, Social Sciences, and interdisciplinary areas that engage in dialogue with Anthropology.</p> https://revbaianaenferm.ufba.br/index.php/rasf/article/view/70353 2026-03-04T18:36:03+00:00 Luis Otávio Vilela da Cruz louisvilella@gmail.com

<p>This article develops a critical problematization of the Brazilian criminal justice system in dialogue with Legal Anthropology and Critical Criminology. It is based on a theoretical bibliographic review, complemented by engagement with ethnographic literature on conflict administration, criminal justice, and institutional violence. The article argues that law, far from operating as a neutral and universal institution, participates in the production and legitimation of social inequalities. It presents a classical and contemporary anthropological state of the art and, from that basis, discusses penal selectivity as a structural process linked to secondary criminalization and to institutional practices of classification, hierarchization, and differential management of subjects. It also examines how legal language, decision-making routines, and institutional organization produce symbolic and material violence under the sign of legality. Finally, the paper proposes a critical reflection on the limits of modern legal rationality and on analytical and political possibilities for thinking a more plural, democratic, and socially situated justice.</p>

2026-06-03T00:00:00+00:00 Copyright (c) 2026 Anthropology Without Borders: Journal of the Graduate Program in Anthropology and the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at UFBA