O presente trabalho tem como objeto a análise da finalidade da pena nos crimes contra o meio ambiente. Pretendeu-se rediscutir as teorias das penas que procuram atribuir à pena fins que legitimem sua existência e aplicação à luz do Direito Penal ambiental, cujas peculiaridades na formação do injusto jurídico-penal produzem reflexos sobre essa legitimação no Estado democrático de Direito. Para tanto, expôs-se criticamente as principais teorias das penas, que se ocuparam de definir os conceitos de retribuição e prevenção. A partir dessa base, as características do Direito Penal do meio ambiente foram confrontadas com as teorias das penas, tecendo-se considerações sobre o bem jurídico ambiental, os sujeitos destinatários das normas, a utilização da remissão administrativa, os delitos de perigo abstrato e a reparação do dano. Diante desse panorama, demonstrou-se que as escolhas legislativas quanto à estrutura do injusto penal ambiental e às sanções dele decorrentes desencadeiam uma perda de conteúdo dos fins das penas conhecidos. Em outras palavras, parece haver um descompasso entre as teorias das penas e o Direito Penal, em especial na seara ambiental. No contexto de busca por uma finalidade da pena nos crimes contra o meio ambiente, verificou-se haver o reconhecimento doutrinário de uma função simbólica da sanção penal para a construção de uma ética ambiental , que não deveria prevalecer sobre os efeitos instrumentais da pena, sob risco de deterioração da credibilidade do Direito Penal, em face da ineficiência na resolução efetiva de conflitos. Por fim, investigou-se, nas decisões dos tribunais superiores brasileiros, desde a vigência da Lei de Crimes Ambientais, a efetiva aplicação das penas no Direito Penal ambiental. O quadro resultante deste levantamento empírico, a nosso ver, confirma o diagnóstico de que o Direito Penal ambiental deveria ser restrito aos casos mais graves de degradação ambiental, convergente com a intervenção mínima e subsidiária. Aperfeiçoar as normas penais ambientais, com estruturas de imputação compatíveis com uma política criminal que valoriza os direitos fundamentais, parece ser a melhor alternativa para garantir, além do simbolismo, a prevalência dos fins manifestos da sanção penal. / This work aimed to study the objectives of criminal punishments in environmental crimes. Theories on criminal punishments, which attempt to underpin the rightness and justification of criminal sanctions, were reexamined in light of environmental criminal law, whose idiosyncrasies with respect to the shape and form of criminal offenses echo on rule of law legitimacy processes. In order to achieve such analysis, major theories on criminal punishments were critically assessed, as were the definitions of retribution and deterrence. This departure point allowed for the characteristics of environmental criminal law to be confronted with theories on criminal punishments, and as a result for the examination of environmental criminal laws object of protection, its subjects, the use of administrative guidelines, abstract endangerment crimes, and restoration. Such analyses indicate that legislative choices with regard to the structure of environmental criminal offenses and their sanctions have diluted criminal punishments objectives according to traditional theories. In other words, theories on criminal punishments seem not to be synchronized with factual criminal law, especially in the environmental field. Amidst the search for criminal punishments objectives in environmental crimes, doctrinal studies have confirmed the existence of an objective symbolic communication related to environmentalist ethics for criminal punishments in crimes against the environment. Such function should not prevail to the detriment of criminal punishments instrumental effects, because it could jeopardize criminal laws credibility, due to the lack of effective dispute resolution. Finally, Brazilian superior courts decisions since the enactment of the Environmental Crimes Law were studied to verify the actual application of criminal punishments related to the environment. This empirical work has, in our view, confirmed that environmental criminal law should be restricted to the most acute cases of environmental damages, in accordance with minimal and subsidiary interference by criminal law. Enhancing environmental criminal law, making its application convergent with a criminal policy that strengthens fundamental rights, seem to be the preferred path for ensuring, beyond symbolism, the explicit objectives of criminal punishments.

Partant de l’observation et de l’étude expérimentale (réalisée en Master 2) de situations de maladie d’Alzheimer débutante avec association d’une amnésie hippocampique, d’une anomie et d’une apraxie constructive pour l’espace projectif (syndrome S3A), nous proposons que la cooccurrence des troubles cognitifs et psychopathologiques peut être liée à une rigidification de la fonction symbolique, à savoir la réduction de l’empan de substitution d’un signifié par des signifiants. Nous examinons cette hypothèse à propos des troubles cognitifs en partant de la définition de la fonction symbolique (ou sémiotique) par Piaget. Nous l’étendons aux aspects psychopathologiques en partant de la symbolisation et de ses transformations. La notion de distance symbolique est évoquée à titre de dénominateur commun à tous ces processus, cible de la rigidification de la fonction symbolique. Elle pourrait être liée aux perturbations de la mémoire de travail, entraînant :_ Proactivement, une déstructuration des éléments attributionnels dans le réseau sémantique élargi, contribuant à la genèse des troubles cognitifs._ Rétroactivement, du fait de l’érosion des mécanismes secondaires, l’activation de phénomènes archaïques - dont l’angoisse de non représentation – et des défenses attenantes. Quelques implications psychothérapiques sont envisagées. / Starting from the observation and experimental study of Alzheimer's disease early situations with association of hippocampal amnesia, anomia and constructive apraxia for projective space (S3A syndrome), we propose that the co-occurrence of cognitive and psychopathological disorders may be linked to a stiffening of the symbolic function, namely the reduction of the span of substitution of a signified item by signifiers. We examine this hypothesis about the cognitive impairment on the basis of the symbolic function as defined by Piaget. We extend it to psychopathological aspects starting with the symbolization and its transformations. The concept of symbolic distance is mentioned as a common denominator for all these processes, as a target for the stiffening of the symbolic function. It could be related to working memory impairment, causing:_ Proactively, a destructuration of atributional elements in the “broad semantic network”, contributing to the genesis of cognitive impairment._ Retroactively, because of the erosion of secondary mechanisms, an activation of archaic phenomena - including the anxiety of non-representation - and of the archaic defenses.Some psychotherapeutic implications are considered.