Human Rights and Remains: a hypothesis for legally confronting the problem of torture in Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Fortes, Pedro Rubim Borges
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Estudos Empíricos em Direito
• Texto Completo: https://reedrevista.org/reed/article/view/7
• topic: Tortura; Controle da atividade policial; Plea bargaining; Perjúrio; Interrogatório judicial; Torture; Police control; Plea bargaining; Perjury; Judicial hearing.

This article discusses the problem of torture in Brazil through an empirical perspective and a functionalist approach, analyzing the limited effectiveness of the criminal justice system in filtering episodes of police violence. The analysis of 43 criminal cases and interviews with 12 legal professionals revealed a high number of allegations of police violence. Investigations into these allegations according to public defenders, prosecutors, and criminal judges are  rare. Based on a comparative analysis, research suggests that structural factors of Brazilian criminal procedure contributed to the inertia of the relevant players. The time gap between a defendant's prison and his judicial hearing is extremely long, reducing the possibility of collecting evidence of torture. The lack of a system of rewards (plea bargaining) and sanctions (perjury) induces defendants to not remain silent, but to present a version of facts that is usually perceived as a fantasy by the professionals. In addition, the absence of an effective mechanism of police control produces a lack of initiative to investigate allegations of torture made by criminal defendants. Our concluding remarks suggest that exhaustive empirical research should investigate this hypothesis about issues surrounding the problem of torture in Brazil and how legislative reforms could transform the Brazilian criminal justice system into a more efficient filter of episodes of police violence.