Compreensão da criminalidade por jovens de famílias classes médias em situação de conflito com a lei

Abstract

Reflect about and with teenagers of lower socioeconomic conditions defers to a stereotype, no less real and legitimate, but repeated, of less opportunities. So, the question which guides this work is about how middle classes young people, in conflict with the law, perceive their entrance and / or permanence in criminality. Six young people, from 16 to 19 years-old, of both sexes, in urban contexts participated of this case study, three of them were sentenced and the other three did not pass by the juridical system. The standards used to classify young people as middle class were: revenue, neighborhood where the family lives, occupation and educational level of their parents, and others, always used in a cumulative way. Two analysis levels took place in the results: one of social, family and individual dimensions, and the other of relational dynamics, involving issues concerned to: exercise of authority; construction of male / female; relevance of the family; contexts of entry and residence in crime; presence / absence of the father figure; understanding of crime; youth as a slice of the consumer market; hedonism; forms of sociability of youths; rootlessness and vulnerabilizations faced by families. We identified the need to (re) knowledge among young people from different social classes and we find that reflect with the young people from medium social-cultural classes forces us to seek forms of overcoming the limitations of the current welfare policies.