Criminological Examination in Brazil: an Inter-American Human Rights-based approach

The article seeks to contribute to the debate about risk assessments in the criminal justice system and their legitimacy, providing an Inter-American Human Rights perspective, specifically from the Inter-American System of Human Rights. To do so, the starting point will be the ‘criminological examination’, a risk assessment conducted in Brazil in the post-conviction stage. The article will start by laying out the legal framework and evolution of criminological examination in Brazil. Partial results of the author’s Masters’ dissertation will then be examined, specifically how the judges use and interpret the criminological examination, to understand its role in the practice of the criminal justice system. Academic criticism directed at these examinations will then be briefly shown, and focus will be given to the contributions of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in the case of Víctor Saldaño vs. United States of America. The criminological examination will be analysed in accordance with these contributions, namely regarding the unreliability of predictions of future behaviour and its incompatibility with the principle of legality. It concludes by pondering the debates around risk assessments that could be carried out based on these elements.