O ESPAÇO COMO COMPONENTE DA VULNERABILIDADE AOS ATOS INFRACIONAIS DESENVOLVIDOS POR ADOLESCENTES DO SEXO MASCULINO EM CONFLITO COM A LEI EM PONTA

Abstract

The goal of this research is to understand how the space makes up the vulnerability to law offending acts by male teenagers in conflict with the law in Ponta Grossa, PR. The data has been collected from the Police Department for Teenagers and for Anti-Drugs Operations in Ponta Grossa, PR in the period from 2005 to 2007. The information obtained allowed to draw the profiles for the teenagers and for the law offending acts committed by them. The spacialization of the data from the police files highlighted the residential areas of the underage offenders and areas where the crimes were committed. The teenagers in conflict with the law live in the suburban areas in 97,13% of the cases and their infractions have a deep spacial relationship and show differential spacial patterns. In a second phase, health, education and social service institutions able to support the teenagers in conflict with the law were screened. Also, there were interviews with the managers of the referred institutions and with the teenagers tended by this study. It became clear that the institutions are physically present where the teenagers live. However the physical presence of the institutions is in sharp contrast with their role in the teenagers lives, which seems to ignore the reality lived by teenagers in conflict with the law from low-income families. In their turn, the teenagers do not regard the State institutions as being important for their daily lives and develop their daily relations around law offending acts that emerge from a suburban male identity, linked with teenager groups. So, this becomes a paradoxical space, as the teenagers, acting outside the State support programs, conquer their central role through law offending acts and this in turn makes them vulnerable to law offending conduct.