The extraordinary success that marked the launch of this journal, received with surprising enthusiasm, provides a clear indication of what it comes to represent on the cultural level in our country, and that in this sector there was, indeed, a void to be filled. In various locations, the issue sold out rapidly. We have received numerous communications filled with praise and encouragement from professors, magistrates, members of the Public Prosecution, and lawyers, and we wish to record here our gratitude, with the assurance that we will persevere in this undertaking without faltering. In this issue, the reader will find three articles in the doctrinal section. The first, by Prof. Eduardo Novoa Monreal of the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of Chile—an exceptional jurist who chaired his country’s Institute of Penal Sciences for many years and served as executive secretary of the Drafting Committee for the Model Penal Code for Latin America, which was established through his initiative. His work, “Human Progress and Criminal Law,” focuses on the impact of social transformations and technical progress on Criminal Law, referencing issues that are currently at the forefront of contemporary debate. In this edition, we conclude Prof. Roberto Lyra Filho’s remarkable study, “Criminology and Dialectics,” in which the master examines in depth and with a sharp critical spirit the problems of Criminology, from a renewing philosophical perspective of exceptional value. Few in Brazil dedicate themselves seriously to the study of Criminology, which often falls prey to cultural charlatanism based on pseudo-science in an attempt at simplistic and superficial causalist exploitation. Prof. Lyra Filho’s study is one of those that sets the ground and marks the way, deserving, for that very reason, the indispensable attention of all scholars. This section concludes with a legal study of our own authorship, “Aspects of the Theory of Offense Types” (*Aspectos da Teoria do Tipo*), in which we intend to examine and systematize several general categories of the Special Part.In this issue, the reader will find our usual sections, with particular emphasis on the jurisprudence segment. Here, some of the most critical issues currently surrounding the practical application of our Criminal Law are examined in both depth and breadth. Heleno Cláudio Fragoso
Note: This text is an English translation of the original preface published in Portuguese in the Revista de Direito Penal.