ABSTRACT
The first chapter discusses current academic debates about the evolution of juvenile justice systems in Western countries. It underlines the crisis in the rehabilitative model and the shift towards actuarial technologies of power. In contrast to these global trends, Brazilian juvenile justice (sistema socioeducativo) presents some specific and interesting features insofar as, despite the extremely violent social context in Brazil, non-custodial sentences lie at the heart of this system.
The chapter then outlines the book’s theoretical and methodological approach. The penal regulation of juvenile delinquency outside institutional walls is analyzed through a bottom-up approach to institutions, considering professional practices in context and looking at the interactions between the different actors in the system (young offenders, social workers, psychologists, educational specialists, juvenile judges, and so on).
This theoretical approach underpins my ethnographic study of the Liberdade Assistida apparatus in the two cities where I conducted my research. This study draws on in-depth interviews with professionals and youths (113), analysis of youths’ judicial case files (73), and long-term observation in several institutions (social services, juvenile courts, and so on).
