Abstract
This study aimed to analyze the arguments mobilized by judges to justify the issuance of preventive detention orders and to observe the existence of a relationship between these arguments and class and race factors. The methodology used was the documentary analysis of interlocutory decisions converting flagrant arrests into preventive detentions, referring to charges of theft and robbery that occurred between 2015 and 2018 in the metropolitan region of Salvador, Brazil. A total of 322 interlocutory decisions to decree preventive detention were analyzed, retrieved from the case files of Salvador Prison/BA, a unit for temporary detainees. At the end of the research, it was concluded that, among the justifications in force in Article 312 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 100% of the decisions analyzed were based on the category of guaranteeing public order, understood as social harmony offended by the dangerousness of the prisoner. This dangerousness is expressed by the concepts of criminal recidivism and modus operandi. It was also concluded that these arguments reproduce class and race stereotypes, since they use mechanisms to naturalize the group most affected by the net of the criminal justice system (young black men), depriving them of the enjoyment of citizenship and protection of fundamental rights.
Keywords:
Public order; Preventive detention; Racism