A juventude no fogo cruzado

Abstract

In “Punir os pobres”, Wacquant (2007) argues that the United States developed a thesis, later adopted by other countries, that the cause of a criminal offense lies in the nature or character of the perpetrator,
and that the implacable sanction consists in effective means of curbing new offenses. Such thinking, notably inspired by classical liberalassumptions, leads to reductive and ineffective practices for dealing with public security - such as the expansion of the prison system or the militarization of public spaces - because it centralizes its action on the surface of the phenomenon, obliterating the fundamental determinations involve the production and reproduction of urban crime. To attest that the cause of a crime lies in the irresponsibility or character of the perpetrator means to remove from the scene the economic and social structures that determine the life of the subjects in society. The objective of this article is to present the debate on public security in a non-reductionist way, reasserting the insecurity generated by urban crime as an expression of the social insecurity produced by the collapse of labor relations and insufficiency or lack of social protection. Such scenario has placed the poor, black and peripheral youth as the most vulnerable group of the population, being the segment most affected by the Brazilian penal state.