Brazil-italy connections to combat organized crime: the antiprison criminal process

Abstract

In addition to the influence of the historical context present in the rise of Italian fascism and the consolidation of the Rocco’s Penal Code (1930), in a context of the Vargas dictatorship in Brazil (1937–1945), Italy brought strong influences on the elaboration of the Brazilian legal-penal system and to definitions in the field of criminal policy. Over the years, these European and the Latin American countries have been able to come together in pursuit of one objective: together, to combat transnational organized crime, which defies the limitations of borders and increasingly promotes the emergence of discourses about need for greater criminal rigor, broad criminalization of conduct and tougher penalties. On the other hand, a sociological look at prisons, especially in the Brazilian context, demonstrates that incarceration measures do not prevent or control the rise of organized crime, therefore demonstrating the complexity of this systemic problem and the need to seek, among the various forms of resolution of existing conflicts, those that best adapt to social reality, preserving the dignity of the human person, and that, finally, are endowed with greater rationality.