DIZEM QUE ELE É ENVOLVIDO COM DROGA: análise de narrativas judiciais acerca de homicídios de jovens negros em Santa Rita - PB

Abstract

According to the "Map of Violence 2014: Youth in Brazil", the city of Santa Rita in Paraíba was classified in 2012 as the most violent city for young Black individuals in the country. This Final Paper represents an analytical effort to understand the judicial management of homicides involving young Black individuals in this context. To achieve this goal, I investigated how the dynamics of criminalization are constituted and mobilized in the judicial narratives of the analyzed cases, considering the interactions between different state agents. I also examined how power relations shape the reconstruction of facts, contexts, and the subjects involved, particularly regarding the victims and their perpetrators. The methodological procedure adopted was based on qualitative empirical research, centered on the content analysis of ten judicial processes concerning homicides. This allowed me to explore how these judicial narratives create meanings, assign significance, and confer (il)legitimacy to the lives and deaths of young black individuals. Drawing on the emerging analytical categories from the fieldwork, I sought to understand how bureaucratic procedures are instrumentalized in the criminalization process of both the victims and their perpetrators. The research was grounded in a theoretical framework on race, class, gender, and territory, combined with studies from the Anthropology of Law. Therefore, I demonstrate how power relations have a decisive influence on defining who is legitimized as a victim and who is criminalized as a perpetrator, shaping the meanings attributed to violence and determining how death is judicially managed.