Tão próximos, tão distantes: a justiça restaurativa entre comunidade e sociedade / So close, so distant: restorative justice between community and society.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This dissertation analyzes the role of Restorative Justice in the present, attempting to place it in the sociological debate launched by Ferdinand Tönnies, who identifies in community and society two different forms of sociability. The hypothesis from which we depart is that, although celebrated as a panacea to the problems of the traditional criminal justice system, perhaps Restorative Justice is not appropriate under the context of modern societies, since it evokes an ideal of community that could hardly be materialized nowadays. In order to verify this hypothesis, we undertake a review of the literature that examines the characteristics and the social consequences of the modernization process, focusing on the works of Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman. Based upon such accounts, we offer a diagnosis that depicts how the transition from a simple modernity toward a reflexive modernity intensified, in the last decades, the perception of insecurity and transformed the communitarian ideal, which underpins Restorative Justice, into a shelter from the inconstancy of modern life. Then, we describe the theoretical and practical development of Restorative Justice and, in order to empirically verify our hypothesis, we conduct a case study, perusing two conflicts submitted to the Pilot Program of Restorative Justice promoted by the Minor Offences Court of Núcleo Bandeirante, located in the surroundings of Brasilia, in the Federal District. Finally, we conclude that, for mobilizing intimate emotions, Restorative Justice works well when applied to criminal conflicts whose protagonists are closely-related persons, linked by communitarian bounds. However, when it comes to conflicts involving strangers, typical of modernity, the restorative strategy is likely to fail. Therefore, in the same way that community is unable to replace society in the present, a Restorative Justice dependent on communitarian ideals will not be capable of significantly altering the performance of a criminal justice system created according to the particularities of modern societies.

ASSUNTO(S)

criminal justice processo penal sociologia criminal reflexive modernity alternative criminal dispute resolution community justice contravenção penal restorative justice

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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