CONFERÊNCIAS NACIONAIS DOS DIREITOS DA CRIANÇA E DO ADOLESCENTE: OS SIGNIFICADOS DA REDUÇÃO DA IDADE PENAL

Abstract

The objective of this research is to analyze the debate about the reduction of the penal age in the seven National Conferences of Children s and Adolescent s Rights, and the emergent meanings of these spaces where important social actors from the government and civil society meet for the formulation and control of the policies concerning children and adolescents. Under the perspective of Vygotsky´s social-historical theory, the historical and dialectical materialism method guided the organization, systematization and analysis of the public documents used in this study. First, look at the history of childhood and adolescence in Brazil in order to identify the continuities and ruptures in the legal interventions aimed to protect children and adolescents in situation of poverty and abandonment. Next, the literature about adolescent perpetration and the reduction of criminal age was taken up. Last, the Conanda´s public documents were examined, revealing their instruments and forms of debate production, policy construction and design to meet the needs of the delinquent teen and the emergence of the debate on reducing the penal age in those criminal contexts. Four major themes were found: 1. Institutional position of the government penal responsibility is given through special legislation; 2. Institutional position of the conferences tension between the defense of the children´s and adolescents´ rights and its institutional strengthening; 3. Policy elaboration and implementation: the search for the autonomy of the government and civil society; and 4. Tension between the meanings given to delinquent teens: victim and/or social problem. These are complimentary in the discussion about the reduction of the penal age and allow one to grasp the focus change from the delinquent teen and the debates on the penal age reduction to the unquestionable need for the creation and implementation of a socioeducational policy. Besides the contradictions, other issues and challenges to effectively implement the Brazilian children´s and adolescents´rights are also discussed.