through a case study of the implantation of the juizados especiais criminais (special criminal courts) in the city of porto alegre, confronting legal previews with empirical reality of a new model of criminal justice, this article aims to understand the meaning and the limits of the informalization of the criminal justice in brazil, since the enactment of the 9.099/95 law. by taking away from the police the exercise of selectivity, and giving to the victim the possibility of participating in the process, the informalized criminal system opens up new possibilities, changing punishment by mediation and violence by dialog, even though it collides with the bureaucratic and authoritarian dynamics of the institutionalized vigilance and social control mechanisms.
