The echo of slavery: the historical process shaping penal selectivity

Abstract

The following article discusses the historical process shaping penal selectivity in Brazil, with a specific focus on the legal and social circumstances of the population of African descent, represented by hegemonic political and legal thought in a framework of moral and racial disqualification. We restrict our observations to the penal system within urban spaces, analyzing the penal legislations of the Imperial period and those of the early decades of the Republican regime, in light of the transition from the political regime (monarchy to republic) and the abolition of slavery. We locate the emergence of demands for greater penal repression to this period, in the light of an exploitation of a feeling of uncertainty and political fragility. The analysis is guided by a reading of Gaston Bachelard and research into the clash with hegemonic thought, by means of openings, cracks, and breaks in the absolutist and authoritarian thought that characterizes and governs the workings of punitive systems.