Resumo:
The precarious situations of some prisons in the world, and in Africa in particular, have
triggered concerns of some States and bodies that promote and protect human rights. The
precariousness of the prisons and their inefficiency in the rehabilitation of inmates resulted in
several alternative penal policies, adopted by some countries in order to alleviate the deficits
found in their respective prison systems. This research is based on the premise that the biggest
problem in the African prison system is the overcrowding of cells and the deterioration of
prison buildings. Data from the 2008 African Prisons Survey reveals that the global average
rate of arrests awaiting trial is 29%, in Africa it is 36%. The reality of the prison population in
Guinea-Bissau is no different, for example, the Bandim detention center with the capacity to
hold up to 56 people currently has 120 inmates. With the political instability and the current
economic situation in the country, the need to adopt prison policies capable of promoting and
protecting the rights of people deprived of their freedoms, as well as providing them with true
rehabilitation, is evident. That is, penal policy should start with a restorative rather than a
retributive bias. Based on this assumption, the objective of this research is to propose a
system of social control capable of respecting the country's cultural diversity, that is, seeking
to reconcile Guinean customary law and the current positive law through elicitive dialogue.
Above all, its forms of social control, the aforementioned dialogue must ensure respect for the
human and fundamental rights of people deprived of their freedoms, as well as respecting the
Guinean cultural mosaic. Therefore, with the fusion of alternative punishment measures,
national and international instruments for human rights in the country, and Guinean
interculturality, we will thus have a model of effective and efficient social control, which we
call Multicultural Alternative Penalties.
