Criminalização e punição: usuários de drogas ilícitas no Sistema de Justiça Penal em Manaus

Abstract

This thesis focuses on drug users who fall under the Criminal Justice system in Manaus, seeking to identify the underlying reasons for their criminalization and punishment. In this sense, the “Drugs Law” (Lei sobre Drogas, Law n. 11343/2006) was analyzed not only with regards to its contents, but also with regards to how it is effectively applied. This analysis was performed under the Labeling Approach, which focuses on interactions and is connected to deviance; this approach is used thus as the basic theoretical framework for this work (which also resorts to other fields of study) for mapping the various meanings attributed to the criminalization of the act of having or being with drugs for own consumption and its consequent punishment. Therefore, this criminalization process was identified: what is the path followed by drug users who were “captured” by the police and fell under Manaus’ Criminal Justice; which meanings are internalized by such users; how do they perceive the attribution of a crime to their acts, and the consequent punishment applied to them; who are these individuals. Building upon these specific objectives, by means of an empirical and desk study, the main characteristics of formal and informal social controls related to the drugs issue; moreover, the path took by the drug users who enter Manaus’ Criminal Justice System was mapped; the meaning attributed by these persons, who take part in Community Therapy meetings promoted by the Alternative Sentences and Measures Enforcement Judicial Circuit (Vara de Execuções de Medidas e Penas Alternativas – VEMEPA), to the crime and criminal punishment imposed on them was observed; in addition to that, the process through which they build meanings of themselves, as well as of otherness, and the world, was observed; last, but not least, the socioeconomic and demographic profile of these drug users was also analyzed, thus revealing their social origins.