The Portuguese empire brought inescapable violence to the indigenous communities of Brazil and to those it enslaved. Throughout the centuries of colonial subjugation, driven by the Iberian monarchical traditions of hierarchy, militarism and moral crusade, ‘just war’ narratives were employed to legitimate the use of violent legal and extra-legal measures against enslaved peoples and others deemed unruly or rebellious and a threat to colonial order. Two centuries after independence, Brazil remains at war with its ‘internal enemies’. Its justice practices continue to be characterised by colonial rationalisations. This paper illustrates the contemporary coloniality inherent in the carceral system from the moment of detention pre-trial through sentencing and imprisonment.

This paper evaluates a pioneering project to introduce a gender-sensitive approach to working with women completing probation and community service orders in Kenya. The intervention consisted of context-specific research with women throughout Kenya, leading to adaptations to existing probation tools, followed by pilot implementation of a gender-sensitive approach. The evaluation explores the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of the intervention and presents opinions of implementing probation officers and sector experts. Findings suggest that the project genuinely broke new ground in terms of research on gender-sensitivity and quality of pre-trial reporting for women. Close adherence to the UN Bangkok Rules means the model and lessons are applicable both domestically and globally.

This chapter illustrates how colonial-era power dynamics continue to influence judicial decision-making at the pre-trial stage in Brazil to reveal the coloniality of justice. The research responds directly to Aliverti et al.’s (2021) call to ‘decolonize the criminal question’ by exposing and explaining how colonial logics inform contemporary justice mechanisms. In 2015, custody hearings were introduced in Brazil to address concerns over excessive use of pre-trial detention. Despite this move from paper-based decisions to in-person hearings, the use of pre-trial detention remains high, especially for young Black men with low to no income. This research explores why. The chapter begins by discussing the hierarchicalized and bounded nature of citizenship during the Portuguese Empire. It then explores the concept of coloniality and charts how white-supremacist power structures were sustained beyond the abolition of slavery and into the postcolonial period. Thematic analysis of twenty-six interviews with judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and specialists in Rio de Janeiro reveals the white-centred nature of citizenship and how stigmatized spaces are considered criminogenic. Analysis across spatial, temporal, and subjective dimensions suggests that colonial white-supremacist ways of understanding the world have persisted. Inhumane treatment of racialized groups is thus naturalized at an ontological level for judges. The high rates of pre-trial detention can therefore be understood as a product of the coloniality of justice.

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