“If not Mine, She Won't Belong to Another”: Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in a Femicide Perpetrator from Brazil

Case files can show how aggressors use different explanations to reduce the seriousness of their crime. We aimed to identify and categorize a 2016 Brazilian case file from a perpetrator of femicide, based on moral disengagement theory. Content analysis yielded 47 verbalized excerpts, with 70 disengagement occurrences. The most frequently used mechanisms throughout the aggressor's speeches consisted of moral justification and blaming the victim herself. Results indicated that he reduced the seriousness of the femicide and sought reduction of the consequences. We discuss how speeches in criminal cases can serve as a secondary source for producing data on violence.

Dependency 4.0: Theoretical Considerations and the Brazilian Case

The liberalization of markets for goods and assets that took place beginning in the 1980s, alongside a strengthening of the resulting transnationalization of capital, did not alter the basic hierarchical organization of the global capitalist system. This new dependency, here called “dependency 4.0,” is based on the rent seeking that marks the contemporary wealth accumulation process and ongoing technological progress. Brazil’s incorporation into the international division of labor is emblematic of this type of subordination. A liberalização dos mercados de bens e ativos que teve lugar a partir dos anos 1980 e o fortalecimento da transnacionalização do capital que resultou daí não alteraram o pressuposto fundamental da prevalência de uma organização hierárquica no sistema capitalista mundial. Um novo tipo de dependência a relacionar países centrais e periféricos, dependência 4.0, estaria assentada no rentismo que marca hoje o processo de acumulação e na natureza do progresso tecnológico em curso. O caso do Brasil—a história de sua inserção na divisão internacional do trabalho—é emblemática desse novo tipo de subordinação.

verBERT: Automating Brazilian Case Law Document Multi-label Categorization Using BERT

In this work, we carried out a study about the use of attention-based algorithms to automate the categorization of Brazilian case law documents. We used data from the Kollemata Project to produce two distinct datasets with adequate class systems. Then, we implemented a multi-class and multi-label version of BERT and fine-tuned different BERT models with the produced datasets. We evaluated several metrics, adopting the micro-averaged F1-Score as our main metric for which we obtained a performance value of 〈F1〉micro = 0.72 corresponding to gains of 30 percent points over the tested statistical baseline.

New Psychoactive Substances Constant State of Flux: NBOMe Brazilian Case

The new psychoactive substances (NPS) market is in a constant state of flux, with new substances being synthesized regularly and marketed in many ways and forms. These substances often emerge quickly, just as they disappear, evidencing a clear attempt to circumvent the control trafficking enforcement agencies and the international community. Among the wide variety of NPS, the NBOMe series attracted attention from medical and legal authorities due to the high number of cases of intoxication, followed or not by death in several countries around the world, including Brazil. So, this brief communication aimed to evaluate the number of NBOMe Brazilian Federal Police (BFP) over the past eight years, and highlight the NPS constant state of flux, evidencing by the Brazilian NBOMe case. This is a retrospective study based on information from forensic analysis reports from seizures of BFP. The NBOMe seizures generated 4 forensic analysis requests in 2012, 21 in 2013, 45 in 2014, 61 in 2015, 80 in 2016, 22 in 2017, 19 in 2018 and 2 in 2019, totaling 254 forensic analysis reports analyzed. This NPS emerged quickly in Brazil from the year 2012, and tented to disappear in recent years, from the perspective of the BPF forensic analysis reports, evidencing the NPS constant state of flux, represented here by the Brazilian NBOMe case.