About criminological reasoning and application of criminal policies in the Latin American and Brazilian

Abstract

The analysis of the historical development of criminological Schools (Chicago School, Differential Association Theory, Anomie Theory, Subculture Theory of Offenders, Labelling Approach, Critical Criminology and Criminology Radical) is essential to verify the contributions of each to understand the phenomenon of crime. Indeed, each school Criminological sought to understand the phenomenon of crime in accordance with methods and problems. Analysis of the historical evolution can be seen that the emphasis at every moment, was given to the influence of social determinism (exogenous constraints, external and social) to the influence of endogenous factors (internal, individual) or to the influences arising from own system of social control. Today, one can notice that there was a stagnation of the development of criminological schools and there is a change of focus for implementation of various policies on crime. The objective is, before this evolution of criminological ideas, try to understand the reasons that underlie the Brazilian criminological reality, as well the most important criminal policies applied in Latin American context, so as to contribute to an assessment of the importance of options pursued this matter in this context. It is therefore of great importance to study the ideas of great thinkers of every school criminological and its main contributions, always making the proper connection with the Latin American reality, with emphasis on Brazil. One can see that the schools were criminological thought and developed in Europe and North America, and in this work we seek to examine whether they are right also about what is happening in Latin America and especially Brazil, particularly regarding the relevance of political-criminal options developed in that framework forward to our reality.