PL das Saidinhas has amendments to pass in the Senate and can be voted on

The proposal that eliminates the temporary release of prisoners on commemorative dates received adjustments to facilitate its approval in the Federal Senate. This Tuesday (6), Bill 2,253/2020 was debated and approved during the first meeting of the Public Security Commission. Parliamentarians also approved a request for the plenary to vote on the matter urgently.

The project’s rapporteur, senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), accepted the amendment proposed by fellow senator and former judge Sergio Moro (União-PR) on February 2nd. He stated that Moro’s amendment allows prisoners who have not committed a heinous crime, with violence or serious threat to study outside the prison unit and that this measure “is different from departures on holidays (e.g.: Christmas and Easter), which are being prohibited for all prisoners.”

According to him, the revocation of the temporary departure benefit is a necessary measure that will help reduce crime. “There are recurring cases of prisoners detained for committing criminal offenses during temporary releases. Thus, by allowing prisoners who have not yet been reintegrated into society to benefit from temporary release, the public authorities are putting the entire population at risk”, argued Flávio Bolsonaro.

The rapporteur of the matter also stated that the name in the law will be “Sergeant PM Dias”, in honor of Roger Dias da Cunha. The police officer was on duty, was shot by a prisoner who had received the benefit of the Christmas season, in 2023, and did not resist.

Also in favor of the end of outings, as the benefit is popularly known, Moro highlighted the need to suspend the measure, given the crimes committed by escaped inmates. “A prisoner who is in a semi-open regime can leave, on holidays, 4 or 5 times a year, and the data reveals that some of them do not return and another part remains on the run and still commits crimes,” said Moro.

Senator Luis Carlos Heinze (PP-RS) highlighted that there is a conviction about the importance of putting an end to so-called partying. “Now, the goal is to bring the PL to the plenary [do Senado] on an urgent basis. It is essential to put an end to this story of victimization of criminals that the PT has promoted, with the right to a presidential speech”, he highlighted.

During the meeting that approved the project in the commission, senator Damares Alves (Republicans-DF) stated that human rights representatives were heard throughout the process, but that the greatest of all rights, which is human life, was being violated with the “sayinha”.

Death of PM in Minas sparked debates

The urgency surrounding the debate on temporary departures was revived in early January, when Minas Gerais Military Police sergeant Roger Dias da Cunha, aged 29, was shot in the head and killed during a chase in Belo Horizonte. The gunman is an inmate who had not returned to the penitentiary after his temporary release from Natal – he has a long criminal record with 18 stints with the police.

The case generated national commotion. At the time, Flávio Bolsonaro lamented the police officer’s death and stressed that he would work for the approval of the PL in the Senate. “I am the rapporteur for a project that deals with the issue in the Senate and I am committed to getting this proposal off the ground,” he said.

Other politicians took the opportunity to pressure the Senate to approve the PL. The governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo), stated on his social networks that Dias da Cunha’s death occurred due to outdated laws, which could once again take the lives of more police officers. “Bandits with a history of violence are authorized to “go out”, which results in insecurity for all Brazilians. It’s time for this to end. The change is stalled in Congress. Until when?” asked Zema.

On January 10, in response to demands similar to those of Zema, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), stated that there was no inertia from the House in relation to the proposal. He stated that the project has followed legal procedures and that the Senate will look into it. Pacheco also highlighted that the function of Criminal Law is to resocialize people who have committed crimes, but that those who refuse to be resocialized “have to feel the rigor of the Law, freedom cannot be given to those who are unable to have freedom ”.

Shuttle and bustle of internal procedures and requests for inspection

According to the project page on the Federal Senate website, on March 20, 2023, the plenary forwarded the proposal to the Public Security Commission, where it awaited the rapporteur’s opinion. On May 25, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro was appointed to issue the report and, on June 20, he gave his favorable opinion to the project.

In September, the proposal went through a public hearing and, shortly after, was subject to a request for review by senator Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES). Accused of slowing down the progress of the proposal, the senator, who is a professor of Criminal Law, stated that his objective was “to carry out a technical evaluation of the text and ensure that criminal law is applied correctly and fairly”.

As other parliamentarians also made the same request, collective review of the project was granted on September 26th. Two days later, on September 28, the proposal was once again included on the Commission’s voting agenda.

On October 6, senator Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO) presented an amendment to the project, which proposed the creation of an interdisciplinary commission to evaluate the granting of temporary departure and progression to a semi-open regime, among other proposals.

Still in October, the proposal was removed from the agenda again and Flávio Bolsonaro presented a new report in favor of the text, but against Kajuru’s amendment. The matter was once again included on the Commission’s agenda on 10/26 and 11/6, without consideration being made by parliamentarians.

This year, on February 2, senator Sergio Moro presented the amendment to the PL that was accepted by the rapporteur this Tuesday (6).

The amendment proposed by Kajuru was completely vetoed since, as written in the report, it would change “substantially the spirit of the project approved by the Chamber of Deputies by failing to provide for the mandatory criminological examination, excepting the use of electronic monitoring, as provided for by the PL, and reintroducing the temporary exit in the LEP, basically without any limitation“.

Amendment to eliminate differences

With the aim of reaching a consensus and facilitating the processing of the proposal, Senator Sergio Moro’s amendment provides for temporary exits so that prisoners can attend supplementary vocational courses or high school education or higher. However, the amendment does not allow this benefit to be granted to prisoners convicted of a “heinous crime or crime committed with violence or serious threat to the person”.

According to the senator, the proposal that came from the Chamber ended up unintentionally vetoing this possibility and generated disagreements in the Senate in relation to the bill. Moro understands that going out to study is “important for resocialization”, which is no longer the case with going out on holidays.

According to the parliamentarian from Paraná, partying must be eliminated as they generate escapes, burdens and other harm “to the security forces and put society and other individuals at risk”.

The Commission’s final report fully approved Moro’s proposal, assessed as “convenient and timely”.

5% of prisoners do not return to prison

With each temporary release there is a percentage of prisoners who never return to penitentiaries. Moro states that, in Paraná, there have already been exits in which 14% of beneficiary inmates became fugitives when they did not return to prison.

Newspaper investigation Folha de S. Paulo, based on information from the state departments responsible for the penitentiary system, revealed that of the 56,924 prisoners who were released at Christmas in 2023, 2,741 did not return, or 4.8% of the total. The numbers refer to 18 states.

Acre, Alagoas, Amazonas, Goiás, Mato Grasso, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Tocantins did not grant the benefit. The Bahia secretariat did not send its data. The same happened in Pará, where the exit was still in force in some places. Rio de Janeiro led the percentage of fugitives, 14% of beneficiaries. The state of São Paulo was below the national average of non-returns, with 4.5%.

Electronic monitoring and criminal examination

Bill 2,253/2022 changes points of the Criminal Execution Law [Lei nº 7.210, de 11 de julho de 1984]. In addition to extinguishing temporary departures, it also establishes that a criminological examination will be carried out to progress the regime. The requirement to take the exam has already been permitted by Binding Precedent 26 of the Federal Supreme Court.

According to the proposal, the prisoner will only be entitled to the benefit if he exhibits good prison conduct, proven by the director of the establishment and by the results of the criminological examination. He also needs to present well-founded evidence, through his history and examination, that he will adjust, “with self-discipline, low risk and a sense of responsibility, to the new regime”.

The project also provides for electronic monitoring – the use of electronic ankle bracelets – in case of sentence progression to the semi-open and open regime. Electronic supervision may also be granted in the case of conditional release or when the judge decides to restrict the prisoner’s rights with a limit on attendance at specific places.

The application of monitoring, however, is not mandatory. According to the text of the project, the measure “It is a reasonable rule, since there is no absolute imposition of monitoring, which gives the magistrate the possibility of carrying out an individualized analysis of each case“.

If the rules established for the use of electronic ankle bracelets are broken, the project proposes the revocation of conditional release and the conversion of the restriction of rights into “deprivation of liberty sentences”, that is, detention.

The report also mentions that the use of electronic monitoring contributed to reducing recidivism rates in the state of Florida, in the United States, and in countries such as Norway, Australia and France. “The successful experience of these countries is, therefore, an indication that we will also have good results.”