Preventive prison: preventive mechanism or early punishment instrument and social control?

mecanismo cautelar ou instrumento de punição antecipada e controle social?

Abstract

This article aims to analyze and understand what factors are hidden behind the alarming number of preventive prisoners in Brazil, who fill our prisons and live there in inhuman and degrading conditions, many of them for long periods, even though (at least, they should be) presumably innocent, as determined by the Federal Constitution. To this end, we sought, through a sociological, criminological, dogmatic legal analysis, as well as official data, to analyze questions about post modernity, drawing a parallel between the current economic system, manipulation through artificial intelligence, the permanent search for the maintenance of the status quo, where one group always remains dominant over another and the (ab)use of preventive prisons in Brazil. Therefore, it was found that the real function of pre-trial detention is only precautionary and, therefore, instrumental in the criminal process. However, it is being diverted and, in this direction, it has been commonly used as a mechanism for early punishment and social control of the less favored, marginalized, vulnerable and stigmatized social classes, who are massively excluded and incarcerated, without minimally observing the situation and its guiding principle of the presumption of innocence.