Presentation: Dynamics, flows and representations of crime and criminal justice: a research agenda

Abstract

This dossier is the result of years of collective work, presented in debate forums on the topic, such as the Brazilian Anthropology Meeting, the Mercosul Anthropology Meeting, the Congresses of the Brazilian Society of Sociology and the Seminars of the National Institute of Comparative Studies in Institutional Conflict Management (INCT-IEEAC/UFF). In these forums, we bring together national and international empirical research, the result of academic productions that address institutionalities, practices, social actors and dimensions of crime control, Criminal Justice and criminal selectivity. The works address the institutions and actors of Criminal Justice from the interpretation of managerialist/punitive/guarantorist practices and conceptions, in the different stages of crime control, including the use, legitimization and control of institutional violence practices. Furthermore, the works deal with moral narratives regarding offenders, the sociodemographic profile of incarcerated subjects and social markers of gender, race and social class in penal selectivity. The forms of policing and prison management are aspects that reveal types of social control and conflict management logics that allow a comprehensive analysis of the nature of social control models in the societies studied. Some of the works presented and debated in these debate spaces are published in this dossier, which we imagine to be a contribution to their dissemination and the consolidation of the field of studies in which they are inserted.