O problema da maioridade penal : as propostas de redução da idade penal e suas implicações político-criminais diante da efetividade do sistema prisional e da concepção de adolescência

Abstract

This dissertation is inserted in the research line of “Violence, Crime and Public Security” and aims to analyse the problems and debates surrounding the age of criminal liability in Brazil. It is intended, with a bibliographical and documental study, through a historical, descriptive and analytical approach, to evaluate the lowering of the age of criminal liability. It was questioned, as a research problem, if there were any changes in the conception of adolescence from nowadays or in the situation of the prison that would be able to justify the increase of repression as a reasonable measure to solve the increase in crime rate among young offenders. The research is divided into three moments that, ultimately, integrate themselves. At first, through a historical retrospective, it was sought to comprehend the current conception of adolescence, the history of the tutelage of childhood in Brazil and the changes in paradigms regarding the specialized legal treatment, concretized by the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente in 1990. In a second moment, the study turned to a theoretical analysis of incarceration, of the effects of someone’s removal from society in a coercive way in general and of socio-educational measure of institutionalization for young offenders. It’s understood, thereupon, the current imprisonment situation, as well as the theoretical potential of the Estatuto. Ultimately, in a third step, it was intended to identify the alternatives concretely proposed by the Brazilian legislature branch for the alleged problem of the age of criminal responsibility to, then, confront them with the theoretical framework previously evaluated. Therefore, the viability of these changes was analysed as a solution for the alleged increase in youth crime. It observed that the proposals of legislative change lack any theoretical basis. The debate in the Congresso Nacional is more focused on public outcry and common sense, disregarding researches or, even, Brazilian reality. Accordingly, concluding that the main changes currently proposed means a retrogress regarding the historical achievements and, also, that the situation of failure of imprisonment indicates the infeasibility of lowering the age of liability as a solution to the problem of the crime rate.