Criminal groups (criminal factions): a balance of academic production in Brazil (2000-2022)

• Autor(a) principal: Lourenço, Luiz
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.ufc.br/revcienso/article/view/80706
• topic: criminal factions, criminal groups, violent neighborhood, prison gangs; facções criminosas, grupos criminosos, periferia, prisão

The social phenomenon that involves the performance of criminal groups in Brazil, both inside and outside prisons, is gaining importance and relevance within several areas of knowledge. We propose here an operational concept of this phenomenon (criminal faction) and based on it we map the academic production of postgraduate programs (dissertations and theses) in Brazil. The Catalog of Theses and Dissertations CAPES was used to search the available productions. 212 references were found between 2000 and 2022. These references were grouped and analyzed taking into account regional dynamics and also areas of knowledge. The productions that make up the Social Sciences, including Anthropology, Sociology and Political Science totaled 67 references. There is a diversity in the issues addressed, highlighting studies on young people, neighborhoods, territorial disputes, forms of management and gender relations. As for the methodological aspects, there is a predominance of an inductive perspective and qualitative techniques. The growth and thematic diversity of the issues addressed shows the challenge in building dialogue with different fields of knowledge, in addition to incorporating the different contributions existing in the areas of Social Sciences.