Quarterly Report on Drug-Related Crimes

Abstract

This report, written as a cooperative effort with the International Drug Policy Consortium, is destined to provide the English-speaking readers with data about how drug-related charges are defined by the police and prosecution and resolved on court in Salvador, Bahia (third most populous city in Brazil, largest in the northeast region). It is part of a series of publications from the Criminal Justice Observatory (Observatorio da Pratica Penal), which was created by the Bahia School of Public Defense (Escola Superior da Defensoria Publica da Bahia) in May 2013 to collect, analyze, publish and discuss relevant data about how the Criminal Justice System works in the state. Its methodology consists in collecting data from every report of arrest for a flagrant offence sent to the Public Defender's Office, and to monitor each case during three years, or until the judgment (pending appeal), whatever happens first. The Observatory collects, on average, data on 60 drug-related cases each month, and this first report refers to prisons occurred during the first quarter of 2011, monitored until the first quarter of 2014. Among its most important findings, it can be said that judges tend to consider the criminal record to define the type and length of sentence, with harsher punishment and longer pre-trial detention periods, to those with a previous criminal record. It happens not only in cases when they are legally obliged to (recidivism and other previous convictions), but also when they were free to act otherwise, or even when they were instructed to ignore it (other ongoing prosecutions and other criminal record), and to respect the right to be presumed innocent.