Contravention

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title: "Contravention" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["civil-law-legal-terminology"] description: "Lesser offense in civil law" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contravention" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Lesser offense in civil law ::

In civil law, a contravention is a lesser offense, similar to an infraction or civil penalty in common law countries.

France

Main article: Contravention in French criminal law

Brazil

In Brazil, contravention is a sort of penal infraction — not only an administrative offense - which is considered to be less serious than a crime.

Since 1941, Brazilian criminal law has a dual system which separates penal infractions in two main different acts. They are the Brazilian Penal Code (Código Penal), describing crimes in general, and the , describing the contraventions.

Contraventions are punished less severely than crimes in Brazilian law. While crimes may be punished to reclusão (reclusion) or detenção (detention), the only kind of possible imprisonment for contraventions is prisão simples (simple prison), which is never served under closed conditions (only open and semi-closed conditions may be applied). Fines may also be imposed due to contravention sentencing.

In Brazilian law, one who is already convicted for a crime is not considered to be recidivist when committing a contravention for the first time, and vice versa.

References

Works cited

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