Toward a Dictatorship Over the Poor?

Abstract

Like many countries of the Second World caught in the throes of post-Fordism before they could reap the full benefits of Fordist-style development, Brazil is tempted to import the US-style discourse and policy of ‘zero tolerance’ because, enshrouded in the aura emanating from America as the world’s sole symbolic superpower and global Mecca of crime control, they appear cutting edge, effective and efficient; and because they are the indispensable order-maintenance counterpart to policies of economic deregulation and fiscal austerity adopted by Latin American countries under the press of international financial agencies. But in Brazil, as in neighboring nations, this borrowing promises to produce a social catastrophe of historic proportions because the depth and scale of urban poverty are much greater, violent crime is more prevalent and more entrenched in the history and economy of the country, and because the Brazilian police is not a remedy against violence but a major source of violence in its own right. Moreover, Brazil does not possess a rationalized court system capable of ensuring minimal protection of constitutional rights and its prisons are plagued by fantastic overcrowding, gross lack of access to food, hygiene and health and inordinately high levels of brutality, akin to concentration camps for the disruptive fractions of the (sub)proletariat. Under such conditions, to respond to the disorders generated by the rise of absolute and relative poverty associated with incorporation in the emergent neoliberal global order with the penal apparatus is tantamount to instituting a chaotic dictatorship over the poor, and therefore antithetical to the project of nation building on a pacified and democratic basis.

Does Income Inequality Explain the Geography of Residential Burglaries? The Case of Belo Horizonte, Brazil

“…Finally, there is the question on whether the connection between income, poverty and inequality to crime as modelled and tested in this paper is justifiable. For instance, issues such as the penalization of poverty [43,44] raise a cautionary note not only on the potential analytical biases of linking poverty to crime but also on the more practical and ethical ramifications of considering such a hypothetical link. On the other hand, there is a range of theories that give some support to that assumption (as described in the introduction).…”

Entre o trabalhador e o vagabundo: produção de masculinidades na história da saúde no Brasil

“…Nesse sentido, o autor Loic Wacquant (2003) contribui ao descrever em seus estudos a mão invisível do mercado de trabalho às populações pobres, encontrando seu prolongamento ideológico e seu complemento institucional no estado penal, que se amplia e se desdobra de modo a controlar as desordens geradas pela difusão da insegurança social e pela desestabilização correlata das hierarquias estatutárias que confi guravam a armadura tradicional da sociedade nacional. Políticas sociais (entre elas a saúde) e políticas penais costumam ser abordadas separadamente, tanto pelas ciências sociais como pelas políticas públicas.…”

Creating Institutions: Linking the ‘Local’ and the ‘Global’ in the Travel of Crime Policies

“…Not incidentally, most critics of travelling crime prevention programmes identify the lack of a functioning framework of criminal justice institutions (for Brazil, see Wacquant, 2003) and of vertical links between the state and its overarching institutions and crime prevention programmes 'on the ground' in communities (for South Africa, see Dixon, 2004) as decisive reasons not only for failure, but for far-reaching and detrimental consequences. Wacquant predicts for Brazil that the dramatic increase in police repression in the wake of the introduction of Zero Tolerance policing has dire 'consequences on the social fabric as well as on state-society-relationships' (Wacquant, 2003, p. 198).…”

“…Restorative Justice in many forms has become one of the most successful travelling models; the agenda of 'What Works' in crime prevention and criminal justice has provided models for community policing, offender treatment, and crime prevention that promise universal applicability independent of the circumstances and environment where they are implanted (see critically Worrall, 2004). Finally, the argument has been made that, in the wake of (neo-liberal) economic policies, the USA is presently the source of the greatest number of exported ideas and practices, having spread its ideas to Western Europe (Jones & Newburn, 2003); to the transitional countries of East and Central Europe, to South Africa (Dixon, 2004); and to Latin America (Wacquant, 2003).…”