Analysis of custody hearings in Rio Grande do Norte state, Natal county

• Autor(a) principal: Suassuna, Rodrigo Figueiredo
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Jesus, Claudio Roberto de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Segurança Pública (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revista.forumseguranca.org.br/index.php/rbsp/article/view/1032
• topic: Audiências de custódia; Justiça criminal; Reforma da justiça; Poder judiciário; Encarceramento em massa; Custody hearings; Criminal justice; Justice reform; Judicial power; Mass incarceration

This article aims at systematically describing custody hearings occurred at Rio Grande do Norte Justice Court, in Natal county. The article evaluates the impact of hearings upon everyday life in courts, describing hearings’ general structures and specific interaction rituals involving detainees and justice officers – judges, prosecutors and defenders. The hearings description includes its actors and its recurring as well as exceptional situations and it seeks to ground analyses of public agents’ practices. Such an evaluation is based on systematic observation of practices and procedures involving the custody hearings that occur at Rio Grande do Norte Justice Court. In terms of general structure, observations indicate the coexistence of a formal and an informal dimension of the hearings. While within formal structure, the main role is performed by the judge and then by the prosecutor, who makes decisions out of criminal procedure law; informal structure presents persistent patterns of criminal subjection, personal motives and overvaluation of police production of pretrial arrests. In general, this study points to institutional persistence of criminal selectivity patterns.