"Houses Destined for Them" [casas para elles destinadas]: Insane Offenders, the Article 12 of the 1830 Brazilian Criminal Code and the Question of the Predecessors of Security Measures

Resumen

The first decades of the 20th century are a landmark in the history of security measures. Why? Would much earlier preventive measures be able to backdate the history of security measures? If we want a legal history capable of analyzing its objects in their proper contexts, it is reasonable to preserve the landmark of the early 20th century. One of the possible contexts for the legal historian analysis is that of legal culture in its part constituted by specialized intellectual debate. Thereby, we can determine the disclosure of security measures as a problem for the legal culture. It requires an analysis of the status of the antecedents of security measures. Concerning Brazilian legislation, the best example of a predecessor is article 12 of the 1830 Criminal Code: a rather singular article in the legislative scenario of the early 19th century and interpreted differently along the century. By emphasizing the shifts and relocation of frontiers that occur when the security measure becomes an issue for legal science, we can challenge the memory created by several Brazilian jurists around security measures, constituted by the ideology of novelty and the unceasing quest for predecessors.