Traveling South: A Blueprint for Sentencing Guidelines in Brazil and Beyond

Sentencing guidelines and commissions have diffused widely across jurisdictions, reshaping the governance of punishment, as documented by Roberts et al.’s state-of-the-art synthesis. Yet Latin America remains a conspicuous “missing case” in this global trend, despite facing some of the world's most acute penal crises. Brazil exemplifies this absence: although its 1940 Penal Code introduced a formally structured sentencing framework, in practice it entrenched expansive discretion and a pattern of punitive consistency, with harsh sentences routinely justified through indeterminate evaluative factors and limited accountability. Drawing on comparative insights and policy-transfer scholarship, this article advances a blueprint for structured sentencing reform in Brazil grounded in structured proportionality, hybrid guideline design, institutional oversight, and resource sensitivity. By situating Brazil within the Global South, the article contributes to international debates on how sentencing reforms can “travel South” and adapt to post-authoritarian, resource-constrained contexts.