Produção científica e política na discussão sobre a redução da maioridade penal

• Autor(a) principal: Mansur, Thiago Sandrini
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (riUfes)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/14112
• topic: Psicologia; Maioridade penal; Imputabilidade penal; Adolescente em conflito com a lei; Age of criminal majority; Minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR); Adolescent in conflict with law; Political speech; Violence; Discurso político; Violência; subject.br-rjbn

This thesis main goal is to verify the meanings underlying the discussion on the lowering the age of criminal majority (ACM) in Brazil. To achieve it, we conducted three studies. Study 1 consisted of an integrative literature review that identified as main contributions from 11 articles with reports of empirical research on this subject, published between 2006 and 2017. Searches were made in three online databases that integrate the most important studies in Humanities, Social, and Health Sciences in Latin America. The data were submitted to the Thematic Content Analysis method. The results of the analyzed researches show that social representations, institutional practices and ideologies that support the proposals to low the ACM are based on the doctrine of irregular situation, which consider adolescents in conflict with the law as objects of intervention, and not as subjects of rights and duties. Study 2 examined the content of the Proposals for Constitutional Amendment (PCA) on lowering the ACM in National Congress, published between 1988 and 2015. In them, we identified the criteria for defining the ACM and analyzes the justifications applied by their authors. Searches were done on the virtual pages of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate on the Internet. We found 60 PCAs, which were submitted to thematic content analysis. As for defining the ACM, we found two types of criterion: absolute and relative. The absolute criterion defines ACM for chronological age, while the relative criterion considers the severity of the offense and the degree of adolescent maturity. We divided justifications into five thematic categories, according to one main idea contained in each of them: a) “maturity, conscience, discernment”; b) impunity; c) insecurity; d) “media and public opinion”; e) “comparative criminal law and its grounds”. In this study, we concluded that scientific researches do not corroborate justifications applied by parliamentarians, because, based on national and international researches, criminalization of adolescents generates greater recidivism and more damage to society. Study 3 described how the strategies of parliamentarians political discourse in favor of and against the reduction of ACM were organized during the votings of PCA n. 171/1993 in the House of Representatives. To do so, we consulted the Official Gazette of the Chamber of Deputies editions. We analyzed the speeches of ten federal deputies who spoke most during the deliberative sessions, five of which were favorable and five opposed, totaling 51 pronunciations. The speeches were analyzed based on the Discourse Analysis method. We identified the arguments used by parliamentarians to persuade the audience and describe how they conceive adolescents in conflict with a law. These analysis show that the debates and voting were marked by weak and inconsistent arguments and high emotional intensity, without evidence being presented by either party to confirm or refute the PCA. It also shows that pro-PCA federal deputies conceive adolescents as violent and dangerous people that should be contained, while anti-PCA ones perceive adolescents as people in peculiar developmental conditions who should be held criminally responsible in different ways, and not as adults. An articulation of the results of three studies indicates that it is necessary that debates on lowering the ACM should be grounded in empirical evidence instead of in common sense and public opinion.