Justice on the agenda

The discriminatory nature of the Drug Law, which ends up penalizing the population’s poorest, was the subject of a press conference held this Saturday (October 11) as part of the 1st Course on Journalism and Human Rights.

“All you have to do is look at the impact of the Drug Law on the prison system to see that this policy is not working,” said Rafael Custódio, a lawyer and the coordinator of the Justice program at Conectas, who gave a press conference to the 20 university students of Journalism, Law, Social Sciences and International Relations who took part in the event.

“The Drug Law is a means of criminalizing poverty,” he added.

Between 2005 and 2012, the number of people arrested on drug charges increased 320%. Today, according to data from the Ministry of Justice, 42% of the women and 24% of the men in prison are there for drug crimes. Nine years ago, these figures stood at 24% and 10%, respectively.

Social Control

Custódio pointed out that people detained for drug-related crimes represent 25% of the Brazilian prison population. According to the lawyer, this has occurred partly because the legislation leaves room for interpretation.

“As we stated in an amicus curie that we presented to the Supreme Court in 2012, the law leaves it up to the police to determine who is a drug user and who is a drug dealer, widening the inequality in the treatment of whites and blacks, rich and poor,” he said.

Before the press conference, Custódio gave a lecture on Criminal Law, during which he addressed issues related to criminology and the criminal policy model adopted in Brazil that, he said, serves to exercise control over a segment of the population.

“In Brazil, we pretend that our criminal laws and their enforcement serve to ensure a safer and more harmonious society, which is a big untruth. The police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary only deal with the country’s poor and all you have to do is visit any prison, in any city, to confirm this.”

Based on the lecture and the press conference with the lawyer, the students wrote an article on the topics that were addressed. By the end of the course, at least one of each student’s articles should have been published in a media outlet with a responsible editor.

Once a week, the journalists Bruno Paes Manso, Carolina Trevisan, Cláudia Belfort and Fausto Salvadori Filho, of the Ponte group, will hold one-on-one educational sessions with the students. The educational supervision will be conducted by the journalist João Paulo Charleaux.

The 1st Course on Journalism and Human Rights, a module that is part of the Reporter of the Future Project, is being organized by Conectas in partnership with OBORÉ, Ponte, Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism) and IPFD (Institute of Research, Training and Dissemination in Social Public Policies).