The punishment humanity and the human dignity from a perspective of prisioner’s escape

Abstract

The human dignity and its derivative principle of punishment humanity are essentials borders to the exercise of State’s punishment power and, in Brazil, it has a constitutional status (articles 4.º, II, and 5.º, XLIX e XLVII, from the Brazilian Constitution). The thought about the contratualist philosophers’ works and the humanitarian concerns – especially – after the Second World War suggest that human dignity has a very important presence in the juridical organization, not only like a base to the punishment humanity, but like a ideological foundation for all the Democratic State. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate in what measure the abuses in the exercise of that power could suppress the legitimation of the State’ intervention; and could eventually legitimate the prisioners’ escape like a juridical way to return to the human dignity. It is a controversous theme because the concerns about the human dignity and punishment humanity can not occult the afflictive nature of the criminal punishment, regarding its repressive-preventive.finality.