Resumo:
This research consists of a study about the prohibitionist ideology of the drug policy based
on the decisions of the judges who worked at the Custody Court of Salvador-BA in 2019.
1,096 arrest procedures and its respective decisions handed down by 44 judges were analyzed
and judges at custody hearings. The data were provided by the Research Center of the Public
Defender's Office of Bahia, added to information obtained in electronic processes consulted
on the official website of the Court of Justice of Bahia. In all the procedures analyzed, arrests
took place after police approaches in the streets and public spaces, through searches of the
individual's body, a practice popularly known in Bahia as "baculejo". Furthermore, it was
found that the police used generic and standardized expressions to justify the approach. In
this scenario, the judicial authorities validated the arrest procedure without mentioning the
reasons or lack of reasons that led the police officers to approach the person on public roads.
The arguments used by the judges to consider the arrest valid were the seizure of the drug, a
flagrant situation and compliance with the formal requirements demanded by law and the
Federal Constitution. It should be noted that the judicial authorities constructed these
arguments based on information taken from the statements of the police officers who carried
out the approach and arrest. The arguments used to order arrest or grant release were criminal
history, the quantity of drugs, compliance with the pre-trial detention requirements and the
seriousness of the trafficking crime. In 89% of arrest records in which there was information
about the person's color, the prisoners were black or mixed race. Only in 31% of cases did
people in prison have any type of job. Furthermore, regarding education, only three people
arrested reported having completed higher education. With regard to the quantity of drugs, in
in most prisons the quantity of drugs was small or able to configure use. Finally, it was found
that in the decisions analyzed there is a strong influence of the prohibitionist ideology of drug
policy, characterized by more severe punishment of traffickers, use of prison as a strategy to
combat drugs, belief in strengthening Criminal Justice institutions and use of arguments that
reproduce stereotypes related to the use and sale of drugs. Given the results, it is understood
that there is a need for changes, ranging from the denaturalization of prison as a way of
combating illicit drugs, to the deconstruction of stereotypes regarding the use and sale of
these substances. Furthermore, more accurate control by judges regarding the reasons for the
police approach was urgent.
