A reabilitação do criminoso no discurso norte-americano: uma proposta alternativa ao cárcere duro

Abstract

The criminal`s rehabilitation proposal as well as the search for effective alternatives that can get political investments and, subsequently, a decrease in crimes rates have been getting space among academics researches. The rehabilitation`s toughness and the importance of these proposals on the criminal politics have been defended by many north-american researches. There is, however, a huge gap between what is produced about rehabilitation, on the academic field, and what goes on the ground of the political reality with its proposal to rehabilitate the criminal. What is found nowadays in the north-american criminal politics is a massive investment on punitive action, with a focus on incarceration and on the Deterrence`s phisolophy, hiding itself under a rehabilitative rethoric, but reaching, by the contrast, the individual`s impairment that are submitted to the prison system and influencing, strongly, the international criminal politics. Nowadays, the criminal perspective (Racional Choice, Routine Activity etc), especially, in the United Stares, Europe and Latin America, influence the criminal politics e legitimize their practices. Such theories comprise the mainstream of Criminology and we conceive the nature of their investments as strategies that take the possibility of rehabilitation. According to those perspectives, apart from being expensive, the rehabilitation can not be kept given the peril that the criminal represents for society. Besides, this mainstream vision prioritises the criminals` impairment, generalizing the category of a dangerous individual and reaching, at the same time, the status of truth and common sense. The violent criminal, in this context, as a general category, is taken for grant as an example of every criminal given the fact that this kind of behaviour victimizes and makes the victim suffer – and there is no crime without victim neither victim without suffering. The answer to the violent criminal and his actions, thus, is given by a quick punishment in order to guarantee the public security. We take into account the theoretical production in north-american literature about the rehabilitation issue in order to defend our idea that this is a vigorous and effective proposal on the field of criminal politics. Moreover, we defend that the investment on theoretical constructions about this issue is highly significant, especially if it is focused on what is taken for the common sense, mass media and political actor as a violent criminal. We consider the criminal American framework of actions and approaches towards crime as relevant to think through the international criminal politics influenced by it.