Police and Public Prosecutor Reports: A Comparative Study of Criminal Case Management in France and Brazil

How are certain facts interpreted as crimes? How are they pronounced and managed by judicial institutions? This paper examines the ritual phases of the production of reports by two institutions that play leading roles in formalizing the designation of a fact as crime: the police and the public prosecutor. This paper analyzes the legal and organizational policies and how people establish rules to frame some facts. It also discusses how reports and documents to be used in the legal process are produced.