Criminology in Brazil, or how to treat the unequal unequally

Abstract

In this article we discuss how the ideas of Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) and his followers were incorporated into the intellectual debate in Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By specifically analyzing the intellectual production of Brazilian legal scholars and jurists of the time - who drew on ideas from criminology to conceive Brazilian society and to propose legal and institutional reforms - we attempt to demonstrate how these ideas contributed to the elaboration of differentiated forms of legal and penal treatment for certain segments of the population.