Understanding the Coloniality of Justice at the Pre-trial Stage in Brazil

Abstract: 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.

About the speaker: Omar is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bath, having previously taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Westminster where he completed his PhD.

Before completing his doctorate, Omar worked across several criminal justice sectors, including:

• HM Prison Service as the Diversity & Equality manager in two London prisons
• Several international NGOs running complex multi-country projects to reduce the overuse of imprisonment
• A consultant for UN agencies on human rights projects in justice settings

Omar’s research focuses on how coloniality informs criminological thinking and practice. His current focus is on investigating how legacies of empire influence judicial decision-making at the pre-trial stage in Brazil.

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