The criminal justice system (CJS) has been at the center of Brazilian political debate for a number of years. Crime, justice, and prison are keywords employed by both politicians and the media to describe what goes right and what goes wrong in the country, raising popular support not only for different kinds of laws but for broad political projects that go far beyond the scope of the CJS. These keywords are, with increasing frequency and success, instrumentalized to garner support for punitive narratives and policies around crime and public safety. Through those narratives and policies, such as mass incarceration and violent policing, the punitivism that arose from Brazil’s founding inequalities is replicated and maintained.

This media analysis, which includes traditional media (printed newspapers) as well as social media communication strategies (specifically extreme right-wing profiles on Twitter), is part of a project led by the FrameWorks Institute in partnership with Porticus Latin America and the Oak Foundation, with the goal of communicating about the reform of the CJS in Brazil.