Abstract
The article presents the result of a mostly qualitative research that aimed to investigate the criminal selectivity in preventive prisons decreed for theft in Salvador in 2018 and started from the following question: which are the main factors considered in the reasonings of the dangerousness’ judgment in the decree of preventive detentions? It is considered the hypothesis that, in addition to class, racism is a determining factor for the judicial authorities to affirm the danger of the subject and to order arrests. Then, it was carried out a content analysis of the decisions rendered in the custody hearings in Salvador/BA, contained in the database of the report of the Defensoria Pública do Estado da Bahia (DPE/BA, 2019), from the perspective of critical criminology, associated with the racial perspective of criminal issue. Finally, it was possible to observe that recidivism was the predominant argument to support the imprisonments, as well as that, although the racial factor was not explicitly found, the judicial and police agencies in Salvador still work in continuity with colonial control.
Keywords
Preventive prison; theft; dangerousness; selectivity; racial indicator