In this article we discuss the limits and obstacles to the creation and implementation of a criminal policy in the Brazilian Federal District. So, we analyze how the decision making process in the Criminal Justice System has been structured. We observed, through ethnographies and focus groups, that commissioners, attorneys and judges have been established their own criteria to select police inquiries and criminal procedures. There are different biases in the Criminal Justice System of Federal District that follow different logics, whose consequence is the lack of a coherent criminal policy. The causes of this are the no recognition of the discretion in the Criminal Justice System and, consequently, it no structuration.
Police inquiry; Discretion; Criminal Justice System; Federal District; Brazil
