A Multicriteria Standard to Rank Plea Bargain Proposals

This article presents a model for the comparison of plea bargain proposals. The use of the model increases the possibility of the satisfactory development of the negotiation of rewarded collaboration agreements recently permitted under Brazilian law. A novelty in the model is the objective consideration of society’s interest in adequately punishing defendants whose guilt can be proven. To allow for the inclusion of this element, a multicriteria approach that adds the criteria representing the prosecution’s aims to the criteria regarding the accused’s positions is adopted. The importance of the criteria is derived without direct criteria weighting. A novel joint treatment to criteria collinearity and interaction is developed, which enables the model to accommodate any number of defendants, proposals, and criteria. The framework so developed enhances transparency and encourages collaboration. By assigning a new meaning to the plea bargain, it is able to bring about the necessary shift in cultural standards that can lead to the effective weakening of criminal organizations.