Sentence remission as a strategy of punitive contraction and the outsourcing of penal execution in Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The work analyzes sentence remission and its potential as a strategy for punitive contraction from the perspective of abolitionist feminism. First, it explores the phenomenon of the outsourcing of penal execution, with an emphasis on the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Then, it describes the emergence of distance learning courses through printed material offered by private educational institutions as a possibility for remission through “non-school educational social practices” and problematizes the transfer of this state responsibility to civil society. Finally, it demonstrates that these remission alternatives are undermined by the Public Authorities themselves through the annulment of remitted days via decisions from higher judicial courts. It is suggested that the provision of distance learning courses through agreements between the Public Authorities and Federal Universities would expand access to sentence remission in a way that effectively promotes punitive contraction.