Audiências de Custódia na Comarca de Pelotas/RS

This article is based on data obtained from an ethnographic study conducted in 2024 in the Judicial District of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, during which 334 custody hearings were observed. The study aimed to assess whether the institution fulfills its primary purposes of enabling the review of the legality of arrests and facilitating the identification, documentation, and preservation of signs of abuse or torture perpetrated by law enforcement agents, as well as to identify and examine the factors that influence its performance. The findings indicate that, within the scope analyzed, custody hearings, shaped above all by the inquisitorial mindset that predominates within the criminal justice system and by the authoritarian procedural rationality inherent to it, among other factors, have not yet fulfilled these purposes. Consequently, they have not been effectively functioning as an instrument for safeguarding rights and limiting the state’s punitive power, a situation that, according to studies examined throughout the work, aligns with what has been observed in other parts of the country.