Decolonizing The Criminal Question – Ana Aliverti

They discussed how the favela has become synonymous with crime and, therefore, just being in such a space, even if it is your residence, is enough to presume involvement in crime. The words of J1 provide some insight into this view: And even today [referring to the custody hearings that I had witnessed], there were some cases where the seizure of the drugs was in a context of extreme violence. A place where there has been exchange of fire between them and police officers.

So, in crime there has been indirect violence. As much as the person was not apprehended with a gun, he is part of a group that is armed, and he was caught . . .The vast majority is theft and trafficking. So sometimes the fact of it being the defendant’s first offence and having a good background alone does not rule out the need for detention, espe- cially in those contexts we have seen. Here we gain a glimpse of the judge’s beliefs about who is dangerous or likely to commit crime.

There is a conflation between a space associated with violence and somebody arrested with drugs but no weapon. J1 described this as ‘indirect violence’ and pre- sumes the person to be part of a gang with no evidence beyond the space where the person was arrested. J1 contrasted the situation in the above quote with that of ‘a casual trafficker that doesn’t present a great risk’. When I asked him to expand on what he meant by this, he provided another example from the set of hearings that I had witnessed that day.

One of the hearings was for a truck driver found with drugs, and J1 explained that he ‘does not have the context of criminal association’. In this case, J1 granted conditional release until trial, even though the prosecutor asked for conversion to pre-​trial detention. This ‘crim- inal association’ is what J1 held in mind and led him to decide on pre-​trial detention in the initial case discussed, where he deemed there to have been ‘indirect violence’.

J1 ex- panded by saying, ‘so, we do not look at the crime, we look at the circumstances of arrest and the facts. That’s important. The crime itself makes no difference.’ Such a statement reaffirms the assertion that subjective interpretations of circumstances—​in this case, as they relate to space—​are significant in influencing ju- dicial decisions relating to pre-​trial detention. It appears that merely being present in a favela, existing in one’s own space—​even without a weapon—​may be enough to be associated with a gang/​faction and thus lead to a greater likelihood of pre-​trial deten- tion.

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The multiple contributors 2023 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2023 Some rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2023936570 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​289900–​2 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780192899002.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.

Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Foreword: Decolonizing Critique Mark Brown It is with pleasure that I write these opening words for Decolonizing the Criminal Question: Colonial Legacies, Contemporary Problems. I had the good fortune to par- ticipate as a discussant in the workshop from which these chapters emerged and I am sure their present form has profited not only from this book’s fine editors but also from the wide-​ranging and productive discussions that unfolded over those two days in September 2021.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: e9c9e52ef2885134
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 5,835,205 bytes (5.565 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780192899002
• Pages: 418
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 938.65 minutes
• Total Words: 187,731
• Total Characters: 1,283,720
• Average Words per Page: 449.12
• Average Characters per Page: 3071.1

Most Frequent Words

colonial (832), police (568), policing (511), state (509), criminal (494), criminology (481), social (468), also (414), global (368), justice (365), law (349), indigenous (335), crime (332), violence (311), south (289), prison (279), press (276), new (276), people (275), black (272), women (263), university (262), punishment (259), power (258), control (256), between (252), postcolonial (242), within (238), penal (234), drug (222), one (217), political (216), african (214), race (213), colonialism (197), against (195), death (195), question (192), society (189), white (188), chapter (181), cape (177), africa (176), racial (174), london (173), british (166), work (166), world (166), practices (159), journal (157), latin (156), see (150), oxford (148), research (148), use (148), culture (146), system (145), international (144), eds (143), racialized (143), many (142), order (142), public (142), security (141), well (141), available (139), legal (139), case (136), torture (136), even (135), institutions (135), prisons (135), north (134), war (133), per (133), contemporary (132), decolonial (132), knowledge (131), first (130), thus (130), countries (128), critical (127), groups (127), india (127), cultural (126), israel (125), way (124), sozzo (123), national (123), rights (123), officers (121), american (120), coloniality (120), court (120), southern (119), history (118), two (118), different (117), brazil (117), accessed (117).

PDF Download