A carne mais barata: política criminal e extermínio da juventude negra de Santa Rita

Abstract

In 2012, at the municipality of Santa Rita, located in the metropolitan region of João Pessoa, 129 adolescents aged 15 to 29 were murdered. Of this total, 126 were black. Santa Rita was considered by the map of violence as the most dangerous municipality for a young black to live. The present research intends to discuss how influences of the discourses and practices carried out by legal institutions in the instrumentalisation of genocide and extermination of black youth in the municipality of Santa Rita. Understanding that the research object translates into historical and social constructions, it is proposed to use qualitative analyzes, using appropriate techniques through a review of the national literature related to racism, the genocide of the black population in the country and to criminal policy, with contributions indispensable of Abdias do Nascimento, Ana Luiza Flauzina, Florestan Fernandes and Júlio Jacobo Waiselfisz. The study also includes documentary research, based on the analysis of documents made available by the The State of Paraíba Court of Justice, the Paraíba State Public Security Secretariat, the National Justice Council, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the Institute of Applied Economic Research and the Brazilian Forum of Public Security. As results, it is possible to affirm that the legal institutions never recognized the presence of institutional racism in its structure; that drug policy is instrumentalised as a legitimizing element in the extermination of the black santaritan youth; criminal selectivity becomes evident in the actions of legal institutions by punishing the black population excessively and massively, using criminal policy as elements that subhumanize, marginalize and criminalize the black youth of Santa Rita; the state mechanisms use the legal system legality to design the political history of the country, institutionalizing the social control of black bodies from the dynamics of racial hierarchy. It concludes by affirming the need to build specific and effective public policies for black youth; the primordiality of discussing institutional racism in legal institutions; and the indispensability of discussing a new model of public security.