OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL PENAL DISCOURSES

Abstract

This essay aims to address the debate on social control and penal selection processes, and to understand how the penal system establishes the criminalization and stigmatization of non-hegemonic groups. The research focuses on the contradiction between the official and hidden legal discourses of Criminal Law and the penal system in forms of social control, which are selective, directing their actions toward preferred targets such as marginalized groups, producing social inequalities and mass incarceration, while simultaneously claiming to be equal for all, with the mission of protecting society, delivering justice, and combating crime. The theoretical basis of the work is Radical Criminology, particularly the authors Alessandro Baratta, Lola Aniyar de Castro, Vera Regina Pereira de Andrade, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, Juarez Cirino dos Santos, Vera Malaguti Batista, and Michel Foucault. The research is conducted with the intention of investigating the objectives proposed in this work. The research is exploratory, relying on a literature review on the subject.