Criminal policy or criminal policy?

With the news, reported by mass media, of the deaths of three more inmates or prisoners at the Itamaracá prison complex, the question that cannot be ignored remains: does this government have a criminal policy worthy of the name? Indeed, the question could be extended to health policy, public transportation, education, etc. But since the most visible face of administrative chaos is public security and prison policy, we are obliged to ask the protégé of the deceased former governor: is there anything that can be called a "criminal policy" in the state of Pernambuco?

First of all, is it possible to speak of criminal policy? What is criminal policy? What are its objectives? What is its purpose? - Since the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant distinguishes the retributive function of punishment from its preventive and rehabilitative functions. According to the German philosopher, the retributive function is the most important, because punishment should not be an instrument for another end, but rather an end in itself: to restore what was damaged by the punishment, the harm inflicted on the victim. At this point, Kant adopts the talionic position: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The retributive function must restore or compensate for what was taken away or affected by the criminal. Based on the ethical premise of freedom, autonomy, and human dignity, the philosopher admits punishment as a correlate to the loss or impairment of freedom and human dignity. Contemporary criminal lawyers and jurists have preferred to adopt the other two functions as more important, tending to adopt the utilitarian perspective of punishment: to cause less pain and more pleasure to the greatest number of people possible.

Secondly, there is the problem of the moral (or ontological) foundation of punishment and penalty. Who is responsible for or holds the right to commit a criminal act? - The individual, the State, or society? - If it is the individual, the Kantian position is correct. If it is possible to transfer criminal responsibility to the State or society, we have what is called penal abolitionism. But there is also a more frequent position, that of penal terrorism, which argues that individuals are born evil and must pay for their criminal or potentially criminal nature. Those who defend this view are also in favor of lowering the age of criminal responsibility and the death penalty, or the use of biotechnologies to correct the originally criminal character of people.

The issue is that the adopted societal model (its values, its form of social recognition) can itself be criminogenic, that is, it can stimulate and encourage criminal practices. And the state's own security apparatus contributes significantly to violence. Incidentally, is it possible to reconcile the principle of human dignity with the prison system, prison culture, or the treatment given to prisoners by the state? - If it is not possible, we must admit that it is enormous hypocrisy to discuss "criminal policy"; perhaps the correct word would be "criminal policy," a policy of slow, silent, and continuous extermination of prisoners, since the function of punishment would be merely retaliatory, neither preventing nor rehabilitating. Punish, punish, and punish.

These considerations, inspired by a reading of a doctoral thesis in philosophy of criminal law, came to light in connection with the massacre or genocide that has been occurring in the prison system of Pernambuco, with the omission or acquiescence of public agents in charge of custody, the enforcement of sentences, and the freedom of prisoners. The successive rebellions in the various prisons of the state, prison overcrowding, the delay in the application of the law on penal executions, the lack of personnel—all this leads one to believe that the inmates of Pernambuco have been condemned to death by the state and are only awaiting the execution of the sentence, at the hands of the prisoners themselves or by the riot police, for any weekend. It would be more honest to accept the disheartening observation of the sociologist-jurist Luciano de Oliveira, when he says that the wretched no longer have a place in society and that they can be eliminated without pity or remorse. This is what he calls neo-fascism. The criminal policy of the State of Pernambuco is neo-fascist, despite the existence – in appearance – of a secretary of (in)justice and (non-)human rights(?). And despite the routine and completely nonsensical statements of the current secretary of the department.