Direito à dignidade humana, vulnerabilidade e os territórios de morte na cidade de Santa Maria – RS : o juvenicídio entre 2018 e 2022.

Abstract

This research investigates the high rates of youth violence and lethality in Brazil, focusing on the city of Santa Maria/RS between 2019 and 2023. The thesis starts from the recognition that adolescents and young people, especially those aged between 15 and 29 who belong to the most vulnerable social classes, constitute the main group victimized by lethal violence in the country. The study aims to understand to what extent this youth mortality characterizes the phenomenon of juvenicide, highlighting the victims’ profiles and denouncing the need to improve public policies aimed at guaranteeing human dignity. The general objective is to analyze youth mortality and lethality in the municipality in order to propose strategies to combat violence. Among the specific objectives are: to contextualize the conditions of youth development in Brazil; to describe the historical and legal protection mechanisms for youth; to establish the conceptual foundations of juvenicide; to analyze local indicators of violence; and to propose public policy strategies to address youth lethality. The research, qualitative and exploratory in nature, employs deductive and systematic mapping methods of official information, drawing on databases such as the Mortality Information System (SIM), the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, and municipal health and social assistance data. The thesis is structured into five chapters: the first addresses the historical and social conditions of Brazilian youth; the second discusses the evolution of legal protection for adolescents and young people; the third examines the concept and causes of juvenicide; the fourth maps violence against youth in Santa Maria; and the fifth presents a critical analysis of youth public policies, with proposals for preventive and social inclusion measures. Inserted in the concentration area “Social Rights and Public Policies” and the research line “Diversity and Public Policies” of the Graduate Program in Law at UNISC, the study seeks to contribute to the understanding of juvenicide as an expression of Brazil’s structural inequalities and to the formulation of intersectoral public policies capable of reducing youth lethality and promoting the realization of human dignity. The results indicate that youth mortality in Santa Maria reflects the national pattern of victimization, predominantly affecting young, Black, poor males living in peripheral areas, thus revealing the persistence of structural inequalities and the insufficiency of effective public policies. The study concludes that juvenicide is not an isolated phenomenon but a direct consequence of social exclusion, penal selectivity, and state negligence. Therefore, it emphasizes the need for coordinated and continuous public policies based on the promotion of equity, social justice, and human dignity as essential means to confront youth lethality and ensure the right to life and full citizenship.