Resumen de State crimes and neutralization: state responsibility for cruel sentences in Brazil

Bruno Rotta Almeida , Rafaela Beltrami Moreira, Vivian Pinheiro Schonhofen

• This Article explores techniques of neutralization in the context of State crimes, in order to expose the State responsibility for cruel sentence. Neutralization is a mechanism to absolve or justify one's illicit actions. The techniques of neutralization were first identified by Gresham Sykes and David Matza and developed by Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni on the subject of State crimes. The analysis falls on Brazil's human rights violations in the penitentiary system. The aim is to investigate if the Brazilian State's can be held accountable at the international level, as a way of responding to and preventing State crimes and their massive harms. This Article provides a reflection on the State's responsibility for the protection of human rights in the global system and in the American system to demonstrate that Brazil's neutralizing criminal policy results in the application of cruel sentence and, consequently, in State crime.