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Contravention

Lesser offense in civil law

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated July 7, 2025

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

01France

In French criminal law, a contravention is the least serious among three categories of offenses. It includes non-criminal offenses, such as parking tickets, trespassing, minor violence, or destruction of property. The penalty is a fine stipulated by regulation, sometimes augmented with a supplementary penalty such as a remedial driving workshop.

02Brazil

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 Penal Contraventions Act, 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.

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Contravention”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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