With proposals to discuss the construction, promotion and development of criminal alternatives services and the importance of social participation, the II State Workshop on Penal Alternatives: Construction of Scenarios and Social Participation, promoted by the State Secretariat of Citizenship and Justice in partnership with the School of Judges of Tocantins (ESMAT), held on the afternoon of Tuesday (24th), in a virtual way, debates and lectures on the policy of criminal alternatives.
Counting on three lectures that addressed topics such as the experiences of the National Penitentiary Department (DEPEN) and the use of penal alternatives in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, passing through the state experience of the Policy of Penal Alternatives at the State Level, the Event sought to raise awareness of authors in order to consolidate and strengthen the policy of penal alternatives and disseminate the potential for transformation of a work carried out in a collaborative manner that has worked very well and achieved successful results with regard to the construction and investment of alternatives that confront the prison culture in force in the country.
According to the coordinator of the Group for Monitoring and Supervision of the Prison System in Tocantins, Judge Jordam Jardim, even with the health restrictions of the pandemic, he said it was possible to hold the Event with the technological resources provided by Esmat. "We are advancing in a virtual Event where we can have and give access to information to a much larger number of people with a reduced expense. The School of Judges has reinvented itself and adapted itself to the virtual form and today is providing us with the opportunity to hold this second workshop remotely," he said.
The Secretary of Citizenship and Justice (SECIJU), Heber Fidelis, participated in the Event and talked about the importance of holding the second edition of the workshop even in times of pandemic. "In partnership with Esmat, we managed to hold the second edition of the State Workshop on Penal Alternatives, which is undoubtedly a gain when it comes to discussing the advancement of the policy aimed at assisting people in the fulfillment of penal alternatives," he emphasized. For Fidelis, the partnerships signed in the last two years with the purpose of implementing the Alternative Penalty Centers and Measures were important to create more effective and adverse mechanisms to incarceration, but at the same time submit the citizen who attacked the legal good to punishment proportional to the crime or misdemeanor committed.
The manager of Penal Alternatives Policy at Seciju, Bárbara Pinheiro, participated in the workshop as a speaker and presented the policy panorama of penal alternatives in the State. "Today we have five centers in operation, which together serve almost 3 thousand people. To make possible criminal alternatives, besides being a competence of the Secretariat of Citizenship and Justice, is also one of the points of attention of the Government of Tocantins. We defend that it is necessary to encourage and expand increasingly the services of criminal alternatives, considering that this has been one of the most effective mechanisms in the issue of accountability of some types of penalty," emphasized the speaker.
