RT Article
T1 Judges as Agents of Coloniality: Understanding the Coloniality of Justice at the Pre-trial Stage in Brazil
JF The British journal of criminology
VO 64
IS 5
SP 1045
OP 1062
A1 Khan, Omar Phoenix
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1902446984
AB This paper exposes how colonial ways of knowing and being shape judicial behaviour in Brazil, where pre-trial detention is excessively used against racialised groups. I argue that judges continue to conceptualise and operationalise justice according to colonial logics and thus reveal the coloniality of justice. Drawing on decolonial theory from across South America and from interviews and court observations in Rio de Janeiro, I reveal how judges understand themselves as heroic crime fighters, acting beyond the law in a modern moral crusade. I examine how violence remains a central component of justice and consider how judges deal with the contradiction of neutrality and aggression. I argue that judges, by endorsing or tolerating violence, become agents of coloniality.
K1 Coloniality
K1 Decoloniality
K1 pre-trial detention
K1 Judicial decision making
K1 brazil
DO 10.1093/bjc/azae009