Joao Pedroso

• PHD Sociology of law
• Senior Researcher at University of Coimbra

Portugal, with circa 10 million inhabitants, has almost 800 young people, aged 16-24 years, serving prison sentences. The majority comes from low-income families living in sensitive urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto, with low levels of education, and many are Afro-Portuguese or come from African Portuguese-speaking countries. These young people are...

At the beginning of the 21st century, we can observe the consolidation of the institutionalization and the beginning of the internationalization of the Portuguese sociology of law, in which the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra plays a central role, although other institutional actors begin to emerge. However, the gap bet...

Este livro é organizado no âmbito do projeto de investigação “Desvio e crime juvenil no feminino: da invisibilidade dos factos, seleção e percursos no sistema judicial” e reúne contributos de autores nacionais e internacionais, consultores do projeto. Numa primeira parte, promove um debate interdisciplinar e integradov sobre a delinquência e a just...

O presente capítulo atenta na evolução das respostas judiciais à delinquência juvenil, a partir do estudo de caso português, desde o início do século XX até à atual Lei Tutelar Educativa (Regime Tutelar Educativo dos Menores Delinquentes, Lei nº. 166/99, de 14 de Setembro, alterada pela Lei n.º 4/2015, de 15 de Janeiro), do modelo protecionista ao...

The Portuguese social sciences literature has recently begun to make references to so-called “sensitive urban zones” (SUZs), described as vulnerable zones on the outskirts of big cities (e.g., Lisbon and Setúbal) where the population suffers from poor socioeconomic conditions. The same literature has also described these zones as being areas where...

Research on immigration and violent crime has been showing, in recent years, the inex­istence of a correlation: in fact, the most recent North-American studies reveal that in areas where immigrants tend to settle the most, violent crime has been decreasing. This is explained by the selectivity theory and the migrants’ search for better conditions o...

A condição jurídica de “Irregular” dos imigrantes na entrada e na permanência, em determinado país, é uma decisão de cada um dos Estados, que escolhem entre criminalizar e proibir esses comportamentos ou os integrar e “regularizar”, permitindo o seu acesso a (alguns) direitos dos nacionais. Nos últimos anos vários Estados dos EUA enveredaram por um...

A odisseia da transformação e da regulação jurídica da família em Portugal segue as tendências europeias, tendo, contudo, começado o seu percurso mais tardiamente, designa-damente após 25 de abril de 1974. No presente texto, analisamos, desde 1974 até 2010, as relações entre a transformação socioeconómica das famílias portuguesas e as mudanças e op...

Faced with new family scenarios, moulded under the sign of flexibility, fluidity and plurality, family and children’s law is called upon to respond to new issues, as yet under-defined, which arise between a trend towards privatisation, de-institutionalising, and contractualising of family relations, on the one hand, and a trend to (re)publicisation...

The authors present a summary of the research on access to law and justice which was carried out in the context of the Permanent Observatory of Portuguese Justice. They begin by analyzing the evolution of the systems of promotion of access to law and justice, from the hey-day to the decline of the Welfare State, including legal aid to the poor, the...

Courts in Contemporary Societies : A Case Study on Portugal. One of the most intriguing phenomena of contemporary political science is the recent and increasingly leading social and political role of the courts. In this paper we will present some results of a research project on Portuguese courts. The central aim of this study is twofold. It is, o...

Introduction In Mozambique, although the right to defense, assistance and legal representation is a fundamental right for all citizens (Article 62 of the present Constitution), this constitutional requirement has not yet become a reality. Throughout the early revolutionary period in the country, 1 legal assistance was the monopoly of the state. In...

As profissões jurídicas entre a crise e a renovação: o impacto do processo de desjudicialização em Portugal * Introdução O direito, o sistema jurídico e o sistema judicial encontram-se num processo acelerado de transformação, que varia em cada sociedade em função do seu desenvolvimento económico e social, da cultura jurídica, das transformações pol...