The Legal Construction of Dangerousness: Mental Disorders, Violence, and Preventive Rationality in the Brazilian Penal System

Abstract

The relationship between severe mental disorders, violence, and the criminal justice system remains marked by conceptual ambiguities, institutional tensions, and recurrent interpretive errors that perpetuate stigmatizing practices. This study offers a critical and interdisciplinary review of the legal-criminal status of individuals with mental disorders in Brazil, integrating perspectives from psychiatry, psychology, criminal law, and public health. The analysis begins with a historical and normative examination of Brazilian penal codes, from the Imperial Criminal Code of 1830 to current legislation, with particular emphasis on the concepts of criminal non-imputability, criminal irresponsibility, dangerousness, and security measures. In parallel, national and international empirical evidence concerning the association between psychosis—especially schizophrenia—and violent behavior is examined, with attention to mediating factors such as comorbidity with substance use, disruptions in continuity of care, and contexts of social vulnerability. The study argues that violence should not be understood as a direct expression of psychopathology, but rather as a multifactorial phenomenon, in which the criminal justice system frequently operates as a mechanism for containing structural failures in public mental health policies.