Brazil is one. It has 63% of all wealth in the hands of 1% of the population, while the poorest half shares 9.3% of total income. In the field of criminal law, this inequality has an even greater dimension. From the selection of those approached by the police to the execution of sentences, poor people, black people and people with low education are the preferential targets of the penal system.

Black people and those living in the suburbs are four times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people in rich neighborhoods. The prison population is made up of poor people with little education: 61% did not complete high school, and only 0.92% have completed higher education.

There are crimes and misdemeanors that only the less privileged can commit, such as the crime of eating in a restaurant or using a means of transport without having the resources to make payment, in which the reprehensible act is not default, but the lack of resources, the absence of assets to cover the debt; or vagrancy, described as the act of habitually indulging in idleness without having income to ensure a means of subsistence. Illegal is not idleness, but the lack of income that ensures that idleness.

On the other hand, laws that deal with crimes usually committed by the wealthiest provide benefits that are not extended to others. In tax crimes, payment of the amount due, even after the defendant has been convicted in all instances, extinguishes the punishability of the crime and ends any possibility of applying the penalty. This favor does not exist for other property crimes committed without violence or serious threat, such as theft or embezzlement. In these cases, even if the amount is refunded and the damage repaired, the penalty will be imposed.

The same difference in treatment occurs when the Court recognizes the principle of insignificance, which excludes the application of punishment for crimes considered to be of small value. In common crimes, such as theft, the limit of insignificance reaches, at most, 10% of the minimum wage. In tax terms, amounts up to 20 thousand reais are considered insignificant, because tax evasion up to this amount is not subject to tax enforcement. The result: a third of prisoners in Brazil were convicted of the crime of theft, while tax officers represent 1% of the same group.

There is something wrong with a system that weighs down criminal law on a portion of the population, while sparing others the inconvenience of punishment, often in the face of more serious attacks on the common good. That grants benefits for certain crimes, generally committed by the wealthiest, and preaches prison as the only remedy for many others, locking up a contingent of 700,000 people behind bars, all from the same social class.

To aggravate this regrettable situation, a bill began to be discussed that changes the prison progression times, with the aim of promoting the former president, among others. If approved, those convicted of most crimes provided for in criminal law, as long as they are not heinous and the defendant is a first-time offender, will be able to progress from the closed regime —with restrictions on full-time freedom— to the semi-open regime —in which it is possible to leave prison to work during the day— when 1/6 of the sentence has been served. This does not apply to all crimes: those convicted of crimes against life, integrity or property, involving violence or threats, will only receive the benefit when 1/4 of the sentence has been served.

Once again, inequality. It does not seem proportionate or fair to make it difficult for those who committed robbery or minor bodily harm to progress in the regime and to facilitate the execution of the sentence for the chief who committed sexual harassment, the public agent who embezzled health funds, those who were involved in corruption or fraud in bids, illegally burned thousands of hectares of forest or those who attempted to carry out a coup d’état with violence or threats.

Stealing a cell phone is serious, deserves punishment and carries a prison sentence of 4 to 10 years. But trying to depose, through violence or serious threat, a legitimately constituted government is more serious, so much so that the expected penalty is greater, from 4 to 12 years in prison. The first offense affects a person’s assets, the second undermines the foundations of democracy, and results, as a rule, in unjust arrests, torture, censorship and arbitrariness.

Nothing justifies a progression time shorter than the second, other than the usual benevolence with which Brazil tends to treat certain criminals, especially when they are not poor, black and living on the outskirts.

Brazil is one. It has 63% of all wealth in the hands of 1% of the population, while the poorest half shares 9.3% of total income. In the field of criminal law, this inequality has an even greater dimension. From the selection of those approached by the police to the execution of sentences, poor people, black people and people with low education are the preferential targets of the penal system.

Black people and those living in the suburbs are four times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people in rich neighborhoods. The prison population is made up of poor people with little education: 61% did not complete high school, and only 0.92% have completed higher education.

There are crimes and misdemeanors that only the less privileged can commit, such as the crime of eating in a restaurant or using a means of transport without having the resources to make payment, in which the reprehensible act is not default, but the lack of resources, the absence of assets to cover the debt; or vagrancy, described as the act of habitually indulging in idleness without having income to ensure a means of subsistence. Illegal is not idleness, but the lack of income that ensures that idleness.

On the other hand, laws that deal with crimes usually committed by the wealthiest provide benefits that are not extended to others. In tax crimes, payment of the amount due, even after the defendant has been convicted in all instances, extinguishes the punishability of the crime and ends any possibility of applying the penalty. This favor does not exist for other property crimes committed without violence or serious threat, such as theft or embezzlement. In these cases, even if the amount is refunded and the damage repaired, the penalty will be imposed.

The same difference in treatment occurs when the Court recognizes the principle of insignificance, which excludes the application of punishment for crimes considered to be of small value. In common crimes, such as theft, the limit of insignificance reaches, at most, 10% of the minimum wage. In tax terms, amounts up to 20 thousand reais are considered insignificant, because tax evasion up to this amount is not subject to tax enforcement. The result: a third of prisoners in Brazil were convicted of the crime of theft, while tax officers represent 1% of the same group.

There is something wrong with a system that weighs down criminal law on a portion of the population, while sparing others the inconvenience of punishment, often in the face of more serious attacks on the common good. That grants benefits for certain crimes, generally committed by the wealthiest, and preaches prison as the only remedy for many others, locking up a contingent of 700,000 people behind bars, all from the same social class.

To aggravate this regrettable situation, a bill began to be discussed that changes the prison progression times, with the aim of promoting the former president, among others. If approved, those convicted of most crimes provided for in criminal law, as long as they are not heinous and the defendant is a first-time offender, will be able to progress from the closed regime —with restrictions on full-time freedom— to the semi-open regime —in which it is possible to leave prison to work during the day— when 1/6 of the sentence has been served. This does not apply to all crimes: those convicted of crimes against life, integrity or property, involving violence or threats, will only receive the benefit when 1/4 of the sentence has been served.

Once again, inequality. It does not seem proportionate or fair to make it difficult for those who committed robbery or minor bodily harm to progress in the regime and to facilitate the execution of the sentence for the chief who committed sexual harassment, the public agent who embezzled health funds, those who were involved in corruption or fraud in bids, illegally burned thousands of hectares of forest or those who attempted to carry out a coup d’état with violence or threats.

Stealing a cell phone is serious, deserves punishment and carries a prison sentence of 4 to 10 years. But trying to depose, through violence or serious threat, a legitimately constituted government is more serious, so much so that the expected penalty is greater, from 4 to 12 years in prison. The first offense affects a person’s assets, the second undermines the foundations of democracy, and results, as a rule, in unjust arrests, torture, censorship and arbitrariness.

Nothing justifies a progression time shorter than the second, other than the usual benevolence with which Brazil tends to treat certain criminals, especially when they are not poor, black and living on the outskirts.