Pedro Scuro is director of research and postgraduate studies at the School of Law of the University of Cruz Alta. His research interests for over thirty years have focused on the links between society, law and the system of justice. As author and co-author of numerous books, articles and rapports, he has conveyed to different audiences his approach to the mechanisms of social control, from a non-parochial, broad historical and comparative perspective, expressed as far as possible in terms of available empirical data and logically precise and coherent theoretical analyses.  

In 1992, both as scholar and trade union representative, he drafted the intended human resources policy of Mercosul, the Latin America’s Southern Common Market. He then formulated and helped to implement the first child labor abolition projects in his country.  

More recently, as director of Centro Talcott of Law and Justice (São Paulo), he introduced the concept of evidence-based social policy in Brazil – in a project to improve the efficiency of policing in São Paulo, and in an active experiment involving 28 secondary schools in the city of Jundiaí (in which restorative conferencing was used to change school atmosphere and practice and to influence community culture).  

His projects have consistently attempted to make formal institutions more sensitive to local custom and practices, by supporting community efforts to settle disputes and build a sense of membership and participation, so that people can handle conflicts and understand justice as a way to promote peace.

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Restorative justice is not a quasi-legal pluralist alternative to the modern juridical order. It is a middle-range paradigm, a stabilizing influence fostering confidence in mainstream legal and political institutions, but also a promise of future systemic change implemented on a lower level of abstraction with operational notions defined for restricted orders of conflict, in specific, localized conditions.

 Restorative initiatives must therefore contribute to connect multiple personal relationships systematically, to engender change and help justice systems to enforce law more effectively and adequately, and to reduce disorder, crime, fear of crime and their economic and social costs.

Pedro Scuro

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Leading Edge.  At present, Pedro is working with Judge Leoberto Brancher former president of the Brazilian Youth Court Magistrates’ Association, in an active experiment to introduce restorative mechanisms in youth courts in the city of Porto Alegre, in Southern Brazil. This effort is possible under the Children and Adolescent act of 1990 which has created an opening for using alternative measures for resolving criminal cases, allowing judges to suspend legal proceedings in cases of first time young offenders of less serious crimes.

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Reach Pedro Scuro at  talcott@uol.com.br
 

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