NECROPOLITICS AND CRIMINOLOGY: THE GENOCIDE OF THE BLACK POPULATION AND THE PERSISTENCE OF RACIAL VIOLENCE THROUGH THE LENS OF BIOPOWER

Abstract

This research employs the concepts of biopower, necropolitics, and criminology, aiming for a more concrete observation of the penal dichotomy that Brazil has adopted, revealing itself as a punitive state within a penal system rooted in slavery. The operational aspects regarding who can live and die, as well as the forms of control over the lives of the Black population, demonstrate an extreme marginalization of Black people living in the country. Thus, the debate about the conception of justice and rights denied to this segment of the population is crucial, exposing a penal system that actively contributes to the genocide of Black people through police lethality, the curtailment of fundamental rights, and especially through mass incarceration. In this context, the following specific objectives apply: to discuss the role of penal selectivity in the production and reproduction of racial violence; and to propose reflections on critical criminology as a possible strategy for confronting necropolitics and overcoming racial violence within the scope of Criminal Law, as a measure to combat this system, proposing new reflections contrary to labeling and stigmatization, in order to achieve a Black experience with recognition, justice and equality, in fair conformity with the fundamental rights established in the Federal Constitution.