Marginalised youth, violence and policing: a qualitative study in Recife, Brazil

ABSTRACT

Few studies have examined the relations between urban marginalised youth and the public security system in the northeast of Brazil. This article addresses this gap in the literature through an examination of youth perceptions of a security programme aimed at reducing violence. It also analyses the effects of this security programme by interrogating the hegemonic discourses of state-actors in the region, namely, agents of the criminal justice system. The analysis draws on ethnographic data collected between 2012 and 2016 in Recife, the capital city of the state of Pernambuco in the northeast of Brazil. This approach permits an examination of the nature of new security interventions, and a comparison between two distinct narratives about this new securitisation agenda. One overarching narrative focuses on young people’s vulnerabilities, the other on claims of successful securitisation. An analysis of these narratives widens understandings of the effects and risks of security interventions, contributing to a debate about their impact on young people’s lives and society at large.

KEYWORDS:

• Policing
• violence
• young people
• Brazil
• social justice

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the feedback provided by the anonymous reviewers, Fiona Macaulay and Graham Denyer Willis to previous drafts of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti is a lecturer in Criminology at the University of Westminster. Her research focuses on urban violence, crime and justice in Brazil. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her PhD research conducted at King’s College London (2012–2017).

ORCID

Roxana Pessoa Cavalcanti http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3885-8603

Notes

1. I have refrained from using italics for the term favela because it has become internationally used and widely known.

2. Homicide rates have been increasing since 2014 again, coinciding with the period since Brazil entered a new economic downturn.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [under grant number ES/J500057/1] and the Arts and Humanities Research Council [under grant number AH/L000717/1].