Preto, pobre e perigoso: as prisões preventivas como instrumento de neutralização do inimigo no sistema penal

Abstract

This paper addresses the alarming fact that, according to data from the Brazilian Forum of Public Safety, there are 218,225 individuals in provisional detention in Brazil, representing 24% of the entire prison population. Given this scenario, the objective is to analyze how preventive detention, although legally a precautionary measure, is instrumentalized to neutralize the socially constructed figure of the "enemy" even before the conclusion of due process. Based on bibliographical research, the study articulates the theory of Enemy Penal Law with the principles of Black Critical Criminology to demonstrate that this enemy is defined, above all, by race and social class. According to Ana Luiza Pinheiro Flauzina, racism is not merely a variable but the "structuring element" of the penal system, defining the preferential targets of state repression. It is therefore concluded that preventive detention functions as a device for anticipated punishment and a tool of a genocidal State project , which uses punitive power to execute a policy of racial control and elimination.