Escolas sitiadas - Os impactos do tráfico de drogas nas escolas públicas de Manaus

Abstract

The insecurity and fear of being a victim of criminal actions is a national reality and to understand such issues it is important to see the urban space as a product of its social actors. The production of space in the city of Manaus took place on the basis of improvisations, neighborhoods were emerging in the midst of occupations, many of them irregular, as a result of an accelerated process of expansion of the urban area. Although crime is not an exclusively urban phenomenon, it is in these areas that the highest rates of violence are concentrated. This occurs when the public power is not present or is present in an insufficient way, allowing organized crime to occupy this place, bringing fear and insecurity to the citizens. It is in this scenario that drug trafficking acts, recruiting young people and children to participate in this universe, whether as employees, as consumers of its products or as mere hostages of fear and insecurity. The reflection of this violence in the surroundings and in the school environment can mean traumas in the life of the education professional, in which they affect not only the life of the citizen, but also of an entire community. Based on these assumptions, the objective of this work was to identify how drug trafficking impacts the school environment. As a methodology to achieve the proposed objective of the aforementioned study, bibliographical surveys of literature that deal with the subject of drug trafficking in schools were carried out. It started with a brief description of the concept of urban space, territory and violence, in order to provide a better understanding of the process of occupation of space by criminal factions. Next, an analysis was made of the surroundings of the schools surveyed to understand the particularities of each area and how they contribute to the practice of drug trafficking. Records of drug trafficking around the schools were also collected with the Secretariat of Public Security of Amazonas between the years 2018 to 2021 to identify which schools are most vulnerable to drug trafficking, in addition to the application of questionnaires and interviews. with education and public safety professionals to identify the difficulties of these professionals in their work place. The results show that schools are under siege due to drug trafficking in their surroundings, causing fear and insecurity to education professionals, preventing teachers from carrying out their work satisfactorily, causing damage to students, school and the country. They also show that public security professionals are unable to contain criminal actions in vulnerable areas. Based on the results achieved, it is proposed to reflect on actions to contain or minimize the interference of drug trafficking in the school environment and to promote a reflection on public safety strategies in order to guarantee safety around schools.