A crise do sistema carcerário gaúcho: o hiperencarceramento como política criminal adotado sob a ótica do medo do crime

Abstract

The debate on criminality and public security is often presented amongst the Gaucho population. Thus, the public security becomes a priority in Sartori’s administration, considering that the destination of the funds regarding the improvement of the prisons intends to imprison more criminals as a response to the criminality. In this way, the fear of criminality can serve as a catalyst for stimulating the society’s claims that demand the State answers about criminal policies aimed at guarantying everyone’s security, as well as an electoral platform for politicians. Taking this into account, the present paper realizes an analysis amid the perception of the fear of crime through the news, reports and columns presented in the newspapers as well as the registered criminality with the objective to investigate if there is a relation with the over-use of imprisonment in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. For this purpose, it was analyzed the crime news in the newspaper “Correio do Povo” between 2015 and 2016 and compared to the crime statistics registered by the government of Rio Grande do Sul in the same period. Considering this, it was verified that there was a 0.02% increase in the registered crime rates in the studied period, however, the number of crime news increased 11.1%, as well as the number of covers related to criminality in newspapers that increased 39%. As a result, it was concluded that the increase in the criminality perception shown in the newspapers contributed to the application of stricter criminal policies, as incarceration, in Sartori’s administration, because even though the crime rates, in the studied period, did not raise, the criminal policies became more rigid according to the increase of the criminality perception in the newspapers.