PANEL IISTRATEGIES TO REDUCE THE PRISON POPULATION IN THE
EARLY STAGES OF “POSTSENTENCING AND SENTENCING

Introduction
The paper discusses, with a focus on the Brazilian experience, if the alternative to prison constitutea successful strategy to reduce prison overcrowding. Initially it will be brieﬂy explained the diﬀerence
between alternative penalties and alternative measures provided in the Brazilian law and the
hypotheses of their application. Afterwards there will be presented some data about prision population,deﬁcit of places and the increasing application of alternative penalties and measures. It will be alsopresented the type of crime and the proﬁle of prisoners as well as of abiding alternatives, according
to the data collected by the Ministry of Justice and by the United Nations Latin American Institutefor the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD). The data indicate that thealternative penalties and measures not only did not reduce the prison population, but increased thepunitive control. Therefore, there will be an approach about the challenges and potentialities forthe alternatives to prison policy in order to reach their aim In this perspective. It will be highlighted
as previous conditions not only the reduction of the demand for criminalization but also the breachof common sense about the effectiveness of the prison as the unique tool to ensure public safety.
At the end, it will be pointed at the characteristics of the Brazilian experience on the application ofalternatives to prison as punishment which can serve as a reference to other countries.

1 Alternatives to imprisonment in Brazil

Following international guidelines, in particular the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for
Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules, General Assembly Resolution 45/110 of 14/12/90), Brazil
carried out legislative and administrative provisions necessary to reduce the use of prison as penalty.
They started timidly with the Penal Code reform in 1984, took shape with the Law 9099 of 1995, which
created the Special Criminal Courts, and with the Law 9.714 of 1998. Finally they were strengthened
with the creation in 2000 of the National Center for Support and Monitoring for Alternative Penalties
and Measures (Cenapa), under the Ministry of Justice. According to law, alternative penalties are
the criminal sanctions other than imprisonment. Among them, the restricting of certain rights, which
replace the deprivation of liberty. But there is more and more alternatives that are not substitutive. Inturn, alternative measures consist in a large number of legal instruments which avoid sentencing andthe application of a penalty, or, postsentencing, the imprisonment.
Brazilian law provides more than ten species of non-custodial penalties, deﬁned in the Penal Codeor in special laws, almost exclusively as substitute penalties. It means that, the judge must impose acustodial sanction ﬁrst in order to replace it by an alternative sanction. Prevails in practice, ﬁrstly, theprovision of community or public service, and, secondly, the pecuniary instalment. In general,it is theso called basic baskets , which consist on delivering food or other necessities to charities.
The application of alternative penalties is limited to crimes whose sentencingdo not surpass
four years imprisonment and that have not been committed with violence or serious threat to theperson, or whatever the sentence, if the crime is nonintentional. It requires as objective condition
that the defendant is not a recidivist in intentional crimes, as well as an analysis of the reasons, thecircumstances of the crime and subjective elements, such as culpability, previous records, social
behavior and personality.
Alternative measures are in a minority. Include civil composition, criminal transaction, suspended
process, sursis, conditional release, judicial and legal pardon. The most usual alternative measures are199

criminal transaction and suspended process, in crimes for which the maximum penalty, in abstract,
not exceed two years in prison. The way they are fulfilled often get mixed up with the pecuniary
instalment and the community or public services.
According to research by Machado (2008), in Brazil 1320 types of crimes admit the application ofalternative penalties and measures. However, this legal provision do not produce impact in reducing
the rate of incarceration, as it will be discussed below.
It should be noticed that the Law 9714, which amended the Criminal Code, to extend from one year
to four years imprisonment penalties, in order to admit their replacement by restriction of rights,
answered at the time to the unsustainable prison overcrowding and to tens of thousands of not fulﬁlled
arrest warrants.
Nevertheless, Azevedo (1999, p. 55) criticizes the Law 9714, because the alternative penalties,
particularly the restricting rights, kept from being a reaction to the imprisonment of short term,
to apply generally to sentencing up to four years, which constitute the majority of imprisonment
sanctions, except for the crimes committed with violence or serious threat to a person.
Toledo (1999, p. 139) also criticizes the law, not by the expansion but by the distortion thatengenders. For example, perpetrators of crimes against public administration very diﬃcultly will becompelled to carry a custodial sanction, even in the case of serious misconduct.
In spite of critics, it should be enhanced that in 2008, the number of people who comply withalternative penalties and measures exceeded the number of convicted to custodial sentences.
The Table below shows the number of people who comply with alternatives to imprisonment and of
the institutions involved.
Table 1：Historical evolution of Alternative Penalties and Measures (PMA) in Brazil

Year

Law

Time offulﬁllmentof PMA

Publicequipment ofmonitoring
PMA

Number of
Abiding-restricting rights
penalties
Alternative
measures197

Number ofprisoners

1987

7210

0-1

1995

7.210/84
9.099/95

0-1

04 Núcleos

78.672

1.692

80.364148.760

2002

7.210/84,
9.099/95
9.714/98,
10.259/01

0-4

04 Varas
Especializadas
26 Centrais/
Núcleos

80.84321.560102.403248.6852006

7.210/84,
9.099/95
9.714/98,
10.259/01
10.671/03,
10.826/03
11.340/06,
11.343/06

0-4

10 Varas
Especializadas
213 Centrais/
Núcleos

237.945

63.457301.402401.2362007

7.210/84,
9.099/95
9.714/98,
10.259/01
10.671/03,
10.826/03
11.340/06,
11.343/06

0-4

18 Varas
Especializadas
249 Centrais/
Núcleos

333.685

88.837422.522423.373200

01 Núcleo no RS Sem informação

Alternative
penalties

Number of
PMA

Sem informação Sem informação

2008

7.210/84,
9.099/95
9.714/98,
10.259/01
10.671/03,
10.826/03
11.340/06,
11.343/06

0-4

19* Varas
Especializadas
306 Centrais/
Núcleos

457.811101.019558.380446.764

Remarks:
Number of Counties in Brazil: 2510 (source: UNDP / MJ, 2006)
Number of Counties with Public Service PMA in Brazil: 325 (13%) (source: CGPMA / DPP / DEPEN)% Of Recidivism of ex-abiding of sentences of imprisonment (prisoners): 70 to 85%% Of Recidivism of ex-abiding PMA: 2 to 12% (Source: ILANUD) (Source: Nunes, Adeildo, 1996)
Social Network Monitoring = 13000 registered partner organizations
The National Penitentiary Fund (FUNPEN) of the National Penitentiary Department (DEPEN) of the Ministry ofJustice was created by Complementary Law 79, of 1994.
* In July 2009, was created the Court of PMA Macapá - AP.

The ILANUD / Brazil carried, between December 2004 and January 2006, a National Survey on the
Enforcement of the Alternatives Penalties, in nine Brazilian cities (Belém, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza,
Campo Grande, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Recife, Salvador, Sao Paulo ) besides the Federal District.
It assessed the eﬀect of the policy deployed nationwide by CENAPA. Further, we review some of its
conclusions.

2 The numbers of incarceration in Brazil

According to the estimate of the Geography and Statistics Brazilian Institute (IBGE), in 2009 theBrazilian population reached 191.5 million people. But the annual average rate of growth is decreasing.
From 1.6% in the period 1990-2000 , reduced to 1.2% in 2000-2010 in 2010. The prospective for 2020
is 1% (CARVALHO, 2004). At the same time the projection indicates the increase in the group ofelders and women.
Regarding the prison population, the incarceration rate almost doubled from 1995 to 2003. The
First National Prison Census was conducted in 1975 when were counted 148,760 inmates. The latest
consolidated data of the Penitentiary Department (DEPEN) in 2007 in Table 1 show a continued
growth in the period of 2003-2007. In December 2003 there were a total of 308,304 prisoners in the
country. That same month in 2007, there were 422,373 inmates, which means an increase of 37% of
the prison population1.1 Therefore, the incarceration rate in Brazil is much higher than the rate of
population growth.
Table 221
2This number includes men and women abiding prison in closed, semi-closed and open regimes ou security
measures (in case of mental illness), at establishments under penitentiary administration or policial of the states.
It should be add 217 inmates at federal penitentiaries.
The total do not include 217 inmates at federal penitentiaries. Source: DEPEN/MJ

201

The Table 3 shows the evolution of the female prison population, whose rate of increase has
been greater than that of the male prison population, thus raising problems and new demands. From
December 2006 to December 2007, meanwhile the growth rate of the male population was of 5,2%,
the womenʼs growth rate reached 11,99%
Table 3

Source: DEPEN/MJ

The last published data points the total of 451,429 prisoners in December 2008, and for December
2009 the total of 473,626, of which 442,225 are men and 331,401 women. At these numbers, Brazil has
a proportion of about 300 prisoners per 100 thousand habitants.
The Table 4 shows the number of penitentiary establishments, from 2005 to 2009. In June 2009were computed 1771 establishments, almost all under administration of the states.
Table 4

Source: DEPEN/MJ

Diﬀerently from the tables related to the growth of the male and female prison population, in thistable the columns remain stable, revealing the deﬁcit of places, specially for women.
There is constant deficit which results in prison overcrowding in a large number of the penal
establishments. In December 2007, for 275.194 places there were 422.590 inmates (34,87%), in
December 2008 for 296.428 places 451.429 inmates (34,03%) and in December 2009 for 294.684 places
there were 473.626 inmates(37,78%).
The deﬁcit is even greater if we take into account the number of arrest warrants to be complied,which is said to be 350 thousand or 500 thousand, as in the Final Report of the Parliamentary
Investigation Commission (CPI) on the Brazilian prison system, who visited various prisons during
2007. The Report also states that overcrowding, already identiﬁed by other CPI held in 1976, is the202main problem of the prison system (2008, p. 226). The overcrowding undermine the rights of prisoners
to health, education, work, leisure, ﬁnally, the set of fundamental rights not aﬀected by imprisonment,
contributing to the recidivism within the prison and out of it.
The Brazilian prison overcrowding stems from both the appropriate and inappropriate use of prison.
That means, on one hand, that investments in construction and reform of prisons are not properly
planned and executed, on the other hand, that there was a hardening of criminal laws and in theirimplementation. Besides, there is an overuse of pretrial detention, which results in an anticipatedpunishment. And worse: research in four state capitals and in the Federal District revealed that
more than 70% of cases of theft in which arrests had been provisional result in an alternative to
imprisonment or open prison, although defendants have remained detained during the process(BARRETO, 2007 p.120).
The pretrial detention became one of the direct factors contributing to prison overcrowding in
Brazil. According to the DEPEN in June 2009, approximately 30% of the prison population was in thissituation. This high percentage had already drawn the attention of the National Judiciary Council (CNJ),
which, since 2008, promoted prison work-party, consisting of the review of all proceedings of pretrial
and sentenced prisoners. At the end of 2009 it had been analyzed 93,524 proceedings. In 19,967
of them the prisoners were released and in 31,534 they obtained legal benefits. The most common
beneﬁts were the progression of prisonʼs regime, early release and substitution of prison penalties by
restricting rights penalties. (www.cnj.jus.br). The experience made CNJ set a target to reduce thesize of provisional prisoners population to a percentage below 20%.
Different surveys made in Brazil (BARRETO and CASTILHO, 2009; BOITEUX et alii, 2009;
MACHADO, 2009) show that some crimes stand out in the composition of the prison population: theft,robbery, and drug traﬃcking.
According to the consolidated national data, in 2008, the robbery ﬁgures in ﬁrst place among thecrimes practiced by the defendants imprisoned (27,16%) and the theft in the third (22,6%). In thesecond place appears the drug traﬃcking and in the fourth the homicide (11,87%). The drug traﬃcking
is responsible for the increase in female incarceration.
In his turn Machado (2009), in a survey restricted to the Federal District, pointed the robbery inthe ﬁrst place (22,6%); theft in second (18,8%) , carriage of ilegal weapons in third (12,2%), and, in
ﬁfth place, the homicide (6,8%).
Regarding to the proﬁle of prisoners is one of a young man, brown or black, with low educationlevel, from lower social strata, carrying out activities that require little skill and poorly paid, and also
in a vulnerable work situation (ILANUD, 2006, p. 18). With this proﬁle, most have already passed byjuvenile justice institutions before reaching 18 years. In turn, once released from prison, the likelihoodof recurrence exceeds 70%.

3 The ineffectiveness of alternatives to prison in reducing imprisonment

Cohen, already in 1979 (p. 339-363), announced the risk of the use of alternative measuresand penalties, rather than acts as promised to reduce the prison population, increase the punitive
control. Griffiths and Murdoch (2009, p. 33) also points out: A key concern with the developmentof alternatives to prison is that netwidening will occur, wherein additional numbers of persons arebrought into the justice system (…). If this occurs, the net eﬀect will be to increase the numbers of
persons under supervision by the justice system and prison population are unlikely to be reduced.
This is what happened in Brazil. According Azevedo (2000, p.321) Law 9099, cited above, which
created criminal transaction and boosted the application of alternatives, included cases considered lessoffensive in the formal justice system, through informal mechanisms for entry and processing. The
exemption to the police investigation for crimes submitted to the Special Criminal Courts retired203police authority, which had the prerogative to select the cases considered more ʻrelevantʼ, and so close
the proceedings of most of small crimes.
The Survey of ILANUD/Brazil concluded that the alternative penalty, as provided by the law
and applied by the Brazilian justice system does not comply with the aim to empty the prisons , thatis, the profile of the sentenced with an alternative penalty, specially as to the committed crime, isdiﬀerent from the prison population proﬁle (2006, p.16).
Nevertheless, the social-economic profile of the abiding-alternative penalties and measures issimilar to the prisoners. This is explained by the functioning of the Brazilian penal system which
reproduces social-economic and racial inequality of the society. In this unequal structure are punishedwith imprisonment or alternatives to it only the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed, the browns
and blacks3.
Even then, the Brazilian context is insuﬃcient to explain or justify the prison overcrowding. The
principal reason for the increase in punitive control is rooted in the punitive culture and the idea ofincarceration in Western societies, reinforced by globalization and the hegemonic model of American
society. This model directly inﬂuences other countries in bilateral contacts as well as indirectly, in thebuiding of international conventions. A comparison between statistics of the prison population in the
United States and Brazil reveals similarities in its steady increase and in its proﬁle. Note, for example,
the overrepresentation of the black people.
Solutions, therefore, should not be sought only in the speciﬁc context of each country, but in the
global context. Limited eﬀorts at the national level of little use if not counting on international supportand stimulus. In this sense are very important guidelines and recommendations set forth within thevarious UN bodies. However, there should be coherence between them. For example, the North
American policy war on drugs has been internationalized by the United Nations Convention against
Illicit Traﬃc in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988, resulting in an increase in prison
population in confrontation with the eﬀort to implement the policy advocated in the VI and VII United
Nations Congresses on Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders, consolidated in the Tokyo
Rules.
In Brazil, the culture of incarceration is evident in the persistence of imprisonment as the principal
penalty prescribed by law for about 1,600 oﬀences, and the amount of this penalty as a parameter toreplace it by restricting rights penalties. So is permanently reinforced the idea that only the prison isan eﬀective penalty and that replacing it by alternative penalties or admitting progression from closed
to open regime show leniency of criminal justice, featuring impunity.
The law enforcers generally work in optics to maximize the indictments, the charges and sentences
so that custodial sentences are calculated in amounts that exclude the granting of progression to open
regime or the use of alternatives to prison (MACHADO, 2009).
It should be noted that this statement is true only for a speciﬁc set of violations, ie, the conducts
against property, committed with serious threat or violence and for drug traﬃcking. In the context
of domestic violence a serious threat and injury are curiosly minimized. Crimes against property
committed by fraud or crimes against consumers aﬀecting undetermined number of victims are also
treated with kindness. Regarding drug trafficking, research carried out for the Ministry of Justice(BOITEUX et alii, 2009) shows that the criminalization reaches predominantly the small traﬃckers andusers who also traﬃck.
The ILANUD research conﬁrms this idea, because observed, on the one hand, that judges, in most3

About this aspect see SEGATO, Rita. El color de la cárcel en América Latina: apuntes sobre la colonialidad de lajusticia en un continente en desconstrucción.
, n. 206, marzo-abril 2007.

204

cases, decide by the substitution of sentences lasting up to one year, reaching signiﬁcant percentages
merely to two years , time that does not applies to the crimes of highest incidence in the penal system(2006, p. 16). On the other hand, as the law excludes the possibility of alternative penalties for crimes
committed by threat and violence even if the size of the penalty permits the replacement, and there isa large proportion of individuals convicted for robbery, is reduced the impact of alternative penalties
in the prison population (p. 17).
At the time of the research there was an judicial understanding that allowed the award of restricting
rights penalties for those convicted of drug traﬃcking. But the Law 11.343, of 2006, prohibited theconcession of bail and the application of alternatives to prison4.
In 2007, Machado et alii (2008) crossed the number of crimes susceptible of alternative penalties
with the database of the Ministry of Justice on prison population, named INFOPEN. They concluded
that 25% of the population convicted, complied penalties up to four years and only 8% was in the open
regime. Why these people were in closed or semi-open regime? Because they have committed crimes
with violence or serious threat or were recidivists. The researchers then made simulations with thecriteria amount of the penalty and violence/serious threat, and concluded that the factor that
impacts the Brazilian prison population are not the long-term penalties, but the short ones, due to therestrictions limiting milder regimes of prison or the application of alternatives to prison.
Common sense that the crime of the streets and that related to drugs has the prison as only
eﬀective response is embedded in the legislation. Therefore, those accused of theft, robbery and thedrug traﬃcking are very likely to wait trial in prison.
While acknowledging the failure of the prison penalty, the public insists on its use, trying to justify
the failure with poor management, and faces alternative penalties and measures with caution, do not
perceiving them as an eﬃcient instrument to control crime.
Proponents of alternative penalties and measures argue that the recidivism rates of the abiding ofpenalties and alternative measures are at or below 12% (GOMES, 2009, p. 25), comparing them tohigh recidivism rates of released prisoners. In fact, this comparison is arguable because the alternative
penalties and measures to reach a set of crimes other than that which deﬁnes the prison population.
Furthermore, the much lower rate of recidivism can mean simply that is unnecessary the penal controlof these conducts.
Therefore, to overcome the dispute, further research is needed. Recently, Barreto and Castilho(2009) observed that in cases of theft and robbery prosecuted in the Federal District, the more severe
the prison regime, the higher the recidivism rate displayed. The defendants that have not been
through pretrial detention and had suspended their process had recidivism rates signiﬁcantly lower
than those who experienced the prison and were perceived minor violations of their rights. Moreover,this type of penalty gave the victims a greater chance of obtaining compensation for damage caused tothem.

4 The challenges and potentialities of the policy of alternative penalties and measures as a
strategy to reduce the incarceration

In view of this, the success of the strategy to reduce incarceration through increasing alternatives
requires a major eﬀort to reduce the punitive paradigm itself and abandon the prison as a reference
sanction (Machado et alii, 2008). Implies get them out of the penal system and, in some cases, evenout of the State. It involves valuing the restorative paradigm not only in minor infractions.
At the moment it seems a proposal difficult to implement because the public, mainly conveyed
4

The Federal Superior Court initiated in March 2010, the judgment to state if are constitutional the provisions of
the law (HC 97.526)

205

by the mass media, rejects it. Alternative penalties and measures to imprisonment, restorative
practices, external work, temporary leavings, pardon are deemed incompatible with certain crimes,
particularly those practiced with physical violence, just because in abstract, regardless of how theincident occurred. I will mention two recent events. There is a project of law in the Brazilian National
Congress that provides the use of restorative procedures for all crimes and misdemeanors, since thecircumstances and consequences of the event, and the personality of the author, recommend. At theend of last year (2009) the rapporteur in the Committee on Constitution and Justice and Citizenshipof the House of Representatives issued an unfavorable opinion. The stated that the country is going
through a feeling of impunity, with great production of legislation in order to criminalize conducts andaggravate penalties, so it is inconvenient to approve a project that goes in the opposite direction,
depenalizing conducts. Also last year the Senate passed a bill that restores the conditional release, inall crimes committed with violence.
The existing international declarations, such as the Vienna Declaration on Crime and Justice to
the Challenges of the Century XXI, of 2000, or the Declaration of Costa Rica on Restorative Justicein Latin America, of 2005, or the United States Standard Minimum Rules on Non-Custodial Measures(Tokyo Rules) and the Basic Principles on the Use of Restorative Justice Programs, respectively,
approved by Resolution 45/110 of the General Assembly and by the Resolution 2002/12 of the Socialand Economic Council, are systematically disregarded.
The contraction of the penal system must be discussed in international forums as a priority andcoherently. In this sense much would contribute the abandonment of the war on drugs , alreadydiscredited in the face of its inability to achieve the purposes for which was proposed, as well as of its
ineﬃciency and human rights violations, which can be evaluated by the persistant high consumptionof illicit drugs, especially in America, and by the high social costs of drug policy in the periphericalcountries, like Brazil, where violence is another side eﬀect of ʻdrug warʼ (Boiteux et alii, 2009, p . 106107).
Similarly, the establishment of guidelines for countries to encourage them to limit prison places inorder to compel the judges to apply to prison as a last resort would induce the choice of alternatives .
The paradigm shift must be reﬂected in legislative reforms. Speciﬁcally in Brazil it is necessary
to expand legal opportunities for substitution and alternative penalties for crimes done with serious
threats or violence or drug trafficking, and offenders, as well as for restorative practices in crimes
against property done with a serious threat and also crimes against the person.
Besides, it is necessary to strengthen the alternative penalties and measures considering them as
the principal penalty and provide administrative infrastructure to its implementation and monitoring.
Last but not least, it must be made an effort in implementing the right to equality in Braziliansociety and in eradicating the discrimination that produces stereotypes and racism which made young
people, black or brown, and the residents of slums the preferred target of the criminal justice systemand speciﬁcally of the prison. So can be reached by social policies for health, education, job training,
housing, employment and leisure, which can avoid the criminalization and victimization of thosemarginalized groups.
The Brazilian experience on the implementation of alternative penalties and measures, though
not met the aimed function to reduce the rate of incarceration, presents interesting results that may
eventually transform them in major sanctions and considered sufficient to prevent and punish more
serious crimes. In this respect the results met the goal established by the General Coordination of the
National Alternatives Penalties and Measures to ensure mechanisms to measure the ʻcertainty ofpunishmentʼ as a strategy to spread the perception that the alternative penalties and measures are alegitimate mode of criminal response.

206

The researchers of ILANUD (2006, p.20) evaluated that for best results it is important to exist a
specialized court in the implementation of alternative penalties and (...) a whole body of operators andtechnicians who provide support for the actions of this court. The technical team must be permanentand in tune with the purposes of the alternative penalty, especially with regard to overcoming
stigmatizing practices cultivated by the community (ibid, p. 23). In turn, Alencar (2009, p. 40)
notes that the eﬀectiveness of alternative penalties and measures depends on a social network thatoffers them for services and, especially, the necessary services for structuring and monitoring its
implementation.
From this perspective, it is worth remembering two recent facts favorable to the policy ofalternative penalties and measures to imprisonment. The first is the policy adopted by the First
National Conference on Public Safety held in Brazil in 2009, giving support to the policy which has
been implemented on encouraging alternative penalties and measures. Among 40 highest rated
guidelines it was voted the number 22), establishing as a priority on the political, administrativeand financial agenda of governments the creation of a national system of alternative penalties andmeasures, with structure and mechanisms in the States and in Federal District, the structure andequipping of the Criminal Justice as well as the priority on using alternative penalties and measures,
restorative justice and mediation.
The adoption of this guidance at a conference where there was direct participation of about three
thousand people is surprising in view of the rapporteurʼs statement to support his opinion adverse to
the bill on restorative justice. In fact, there are conﬂicting positions within the Brazilian society thatmust be faced objectively. The research of Barreto and Castilho (2009) found evidence that alternatives
to imprisonment are already gained social legitimacy, especially when there is a conjunction of two
factors to be considered for application of this kind of sanction: the type of oﬀence and the defendantʼshistory. The penalty of community services is one which got more support.
The second fact is the Resolution 101, of 15 December 2009, passed by the National Council of
Justice, which is the external control organ of the judiciary in Brazil. Resolution 101 defines theinstitutional policy of the judiciary in the enforcement of alternative penalties and measures toimprisonment. We should remember that only the Federal Executive Branch had established a policy.
Lacked to the judiciary to assume its share, which is crucial because it is the judge who applies thepenalty and one of the stakeholders in the control of the sentence enforcement. The Resolution
adopts the decentralized model of psychosocial monitoring, which is characterized by compliance ofalternative penalties and measures in various entities and institutions, forming a network enabled
and registered, and its monitoring and supervision by a multidisciplinary team, linked to a specialized
court.
The Resolution legitimizes the model that has been introduced in practice: It is characterized on
the one hand, by an interdisciplinary monitoring which never was implemented in prisons, because
of security reasons. On the other hand, the articulation of the traditional agents of State in the penal
enforcements with a social network, which account ʻwith the participation of bodies representing
the community who inﬂuence and legitimizes this practice, including: OAB (Brazil Bar Association)
universities and non-governmental organizations in the area of justice, social development, citizenshipand human rightsʼ (Alencar, p. 42). The model establishes a relationship of dialogue between State andcivil society that still needs to be systematically evaluated, but responds in principle the requirements
for a social democratic control.

Conclusion
The Brazilian experience in implementing a national policy for alternative penalties and measures
to prison presents successful results in increasing punitive control and in the way it monitor theirenforcement. But it did not reduce the overcrowding, which was its stated goal. Therefore, thecentral issue to be discussed in Brazil and other countries is the growing demand for criminalizationand incarceration. Once limited the penal intervention and concurrently withdrawn restrictions on207

the use of alternatives to prison, the Brazilian experience in the enforcement of alternative penalties
and measures can serve as a positive reference to its application to current customers of prisons,eﬀectively reaching the goal of reducing the rate of incarceration.

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