Parameters for the application of the precautionary measure of electronic monitoring

case study on the city of Teresina-PI

Abstract

This article is the result of documentary research that focused on judicial decisions handed down in custody hearings held in Teresina-PI, between August/2017 and July/2018, in which the precautionary electronic monitoring measure was applied. The objective was to identify objective parameters for the application of the aforementioned precautionary measure, doing so in comparison with cases from the same period, in which preventive detention was decreed. To this end, the following were registered: the criminal types indicated in the judicial decisions (quantity of drugs seized, as appropriate, and crime and misdemeanors in the context of domestic and family violence against women); aspects related to the primacy or not of the assessed person, when mentioned; the isolated or combined application of electronic monitoring with other precautions; the indication of a specific basis for the application of the electronic monitoring measure, as well as the establishment, or not, of a deadline for the measure. Also repeated for the purposes of analysis and discussion were excerpts repeated in the analyzed decisions and their discursive implications for the conclusion of the judicial argument in the application of the measure. The results obtained preliminarily suggest the absence of objective parameters defined for the application of the electronic monitoring measure, at least in comparison with preventive detention, with the exception of inferences assumed from the context of each decision, in addition to indicating practical contradictions between the instrumental function of the investigations. precautionary measures in criminal proceedings and their intermediary role between provisional release and pre-trial detention.