Brazilian criminal policy lives in a permanent paradox. While the country has one of the largest prison populations in the world, violence rates remain high, and the feeling of insecurity remains a central element of public debate. Faced with this scenario, increasingly severe penal responses are frequently presented as an immediate solution, even though they lack empirical support regarding their effectiveness. It is in this context that the phenomenon known as punitive populism emerges.

Criminology, as a scientific field dedicated to the study of crime, criminals, victims, and social control, offers essential tools for understanding the limitations of this model. By shifting the focus from the isolated act to the social, economic, and institutional structures that produce crime, critical criminology questions the centrality of punishment as the State's primary response.

This article proposes an academic analysis of the relationship between criminology and criminal policy in Brazil, examining how punitive discourse has influenced the formulation of criminal laws and the functioning of the justice system. It seeks to demonstrate that the uncritical adoption of expansionist criminal policies not only fails to reduce crime, but also undermines fundamental constitutional principles such as human dignity, proportionality, and legality.

1. Criminology: foundations and theoretical evolution

Criminology emerges as an interdisciplinary field of study, incorporating contributions from sociology, psychology, economics, and law. Unlike dogmatic criminal law, which focuses on norms and sanctions, criminology seeks to understand the causes of crime, the processes of criminalization, and the effects of penal control on society.

Early criminological approaches, rooted in positivism, sought to identify biological and psychological factors in criminal behavior. With the advancement of the social sciences, these explanations were gradually superseded by approaches that emphasize structural factors, such as social inequality, economic exclusion, and institutional selectivity.

Critical criminology, developed from the second half of the 20th century, represents a paradigmatic shift. Instead of asking why individuals commit crimes, this school of thought inquires into why certain behaviors are criminalized and others are not, and why certain social groups are more frequently targeted by the penal system. This change in perspective is fundamental to understanding contemporary criminal policy.

2. Criminal policy and the expansion of the penal system

Criminal policy can be defined as the set of strategies adopted by the State to prevent and respond to crime, encompassing criminal legislation, police action, prison policy, and social prevention measures. In Brazil, a consistent trend of expansion of the penal system has been observed in recent decades.

This movement manifests itself in the creation of new criminal offenses, increased penalties, expanded grounds for pretrial detention, and restrictions on penal benefits. Frequently, these measures are approved in response to high-profile media events, without in-depth analysis of their systemic impacts.

Criminology points out that the expansion of punishment does not occur in a neutral way. It disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, reinforcing racial and socioeconomic inequalities. The penal system begins to function as a mechanism for managing marginality, instead of a rational instrument for protecting legal rights.

3. Punitive populism and legislative production

The concept of punitive populism describes the use of criminal law as a symbolic tool to address social insecurity, often driven more by electoral expectations than by empirical evidence. In this model, the severity of punishment is presented as synonymous with state efficiency.

In Brazil, the discourse of "tougher penalties" is recurrent in legislative debates and political campaigns. Proposals to reduce the age of criminal responsibility, expand the list of heinous crimes, and relax procedural guarantees are frequently justified based on emotional arguments, disconnected from criminological studies.

Critical criminology warns that this type of policy tends to produce counterproductive effects. Increased mass incarceration leads to prison overcrowding, the strengthening of criminal organizations, and systematic violations of human rights, without a significant impact on reducing crime.

4. Prison system and penal selectivity

The reality of the Brazilian prison system highlights the limitations of a criminal policy centered on punishment. The country grapples with overcrowded facilities, degrading conditions of custody, and a lack of effective social reintegration policies. This scenario undermines any attempt at rehabilitation through punishment.

Official data indicate that the prison population is predominantly composed of young, black people with low levels of education. This selectivity cannot be explained solely by a greater propensity for crime, but reflects patterns of criminalization associated with poverty and social marginalization.

From a criminological point of view, the Brazilian penal system operates in a selective and stigmatizing manner, reinforcing cycles of exclusion. Prison, far from functioning as a preventative instrument, frequently acts as a criminogenic factor, increasing recidivism and deepening ties with organized crime.

5. Constitution, penal guarantees and limits of punishment

The 1988 Federal Constitution establishes clear limits to the exercise of the State's punitive power. Principles such as legality, proportionality, humanity of punishments, and presumption of innocence constitute fundamental guarantees that cannot be relativized in the name of immediate responses to crime.

Criminal policy must be compatible with these constitutional parameters. The excessive use of pretrial detention, the indiscriminate expansion of criminal offenses, and the weakening of procedural guarantees strain the constitutional model and compromise the legitimacy of the penal system.

In this sense, criminology offers essential support for a rational criminal policy, guided by empirical data and committed to reducing social harm. Alternatives to imprisonment, social prevention policies, and investments in education and inclusion prove to be more effective in the long term than simply increasing penalties.

Conclusion

The relationship between criminology and criminal policy in Brazil reveals a worrying disconnect between scientific knowledge and normative production. The predominance of punitive populism has led to the expansion of the penal system without consistent results in reducing violence, at the cost of serious violations of fundamental rights.

Overcoming this model requires a paradigm shift. It is necessary to abandon the illusion that more punishment means more security and adopt policies based on evidence, prevention, and respect for the Constitution. Criminology, in this process, does not present itself as an obstacle to order, but as an indispensable instrument for building a more just, efficient, and democratic criminal policy.

Ultimately, the legitimacy of the penal system does not stem from its severity, but from its ability to protect legal rights without sacrificing the fundamental values ​​of the rule of law.

References

BRAZIL. Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil of 1988.
BRAZIL. Penal Execution Law (Law No. 7.210/1984).
BARATTA, Alessandro. Critical Criminology and Critique of Criminal Law. Rio de Janeiro: Revan.
ZAFFARONI, Eugenio Raúl. In search of lost feathers. Rio de Janeiro: Revan.
BITENCOURT, Cezar Roberto. Treatise on criminal law. São Paulo: Saraiva.
SHECAIRA, Sérgio Salomão. Criminology. São Paulo: RT.