When the future is death:
adolescents and youth in drug trafficking
The situation of adolescents and youth in disadvantaged urban areas has always been a controversial issue in Brazil. The economic and political contradictions, over time, led to a scenario full of violence, oppression and humiliation for this population group. A summation of misunderstanding, discrimination and stigma distance group of social equity and strengthening self-esteem, leading to a process of exclusion and social alienation. As a result, more and more young trade school, vocational courses, formal work by the informal market of drug trafficking.This situation can be seen at first as a reflection of poverty and chaotic scenario in which they are many teenagers and low-income youth in our society. Faced with this social framework confuse young hopes and disappointments, acquiring a sense that they will not become subject of your story the way a "moral" and "ethical", established by society.
Expressions like "the disappointments of life lead us to that, then there can not come out, we'll getting used to" or "when I shoot it seems I'm shooting in the world, I really want is to blow it all" indicate feelings of hurt and frustration of these young people, possibly by the effects that poverty brings in anyone's life. It is characteristic of adolescence that cry of pain, anguish, to feel capable and incapable of being everything and nothing at the same time. These feelings always oscillate between extremes, why are quite emotional, and a transitional moment in the construction of its concepts, ethical and moral values. When these frustrations are not properly voiced and heard, your future can be jeopardized, causing emotional problems in their lives, leading to dangerous roads and suicide as an option for drug trafficking.
The culture of crime in the social identity of adolescents
The teenagers live intense moments of transition, training needs for affirmation and many mismatches and mismatches. All this constitutes an important set of experiences so he can reach his adult identity, fundamental goal of this process. According Aberastury (1981), adolescence is considered a period of several bereavements, which lead the subject to emotional instability. The grief can be characterized by different types of loss: the child's body, identity and children's roles - requiring a waiver of the dependency to an acceptance of responsibility - and parents of childhood.
The teenage years can elapse in harmony or painful depending on family structure and social context. The unstable character of personality of this phase is a kind of entity "nosological", referred by Knobel (1993) as Normal Adolescence Syndrome, whose characteristics, among others, are:
Search for yourself and your identity
Progressive separation of parents
Trend group
Need to intellectualize and fantasize
Religious crises
Temporal displacement
Evolution of sexuality
Social attitude vindicatory
Contradictions in all successive manifestations of conduct
Constant mood swings and mood.
To better understand the process of adolescence and its relation to the choice of a high-risk profession, there was a survey, between 1996 and 1998, with 10 teenagers, directly involved in drug trafficking in a slum in Rio de Janeiro . The study was to identify the possible reasons why adolescents and young adults to enter the crime, taking on diverse roles and getting used to the trivialization of violence and death. For this, we sought to understand the representations that these young people have on the health-illness and work, from its role in drug trafficking.
The adolescents included in this study reported the existence of conflicts and disturbances in living with their families, and most of these problems from the effects of poverty. They are young people who belong to low income families in which poverty creates new forms of composition and organization of households, especially with regard to the lack of image of man as father and provider of the family structure. Father absence is a striking feature in the history of life of adolescents, which represents a significant loss in the construction of their identity.
The difficulty in solving and / or mitigate family conflicts makes these young people move away from the family environment, of its housing. In this sense, the family should constitute itself as the axis of the life of all its members - that is, if part of it, for she turns in each range of social activity - ends up being a disruptive pole, from where one part and hardly back. With family relationships obscured, they go in search of other places and relationships that will ensure acceptance and social recognition. Many end up building this bridge with older people (boys) of the trafficking, which may justify the inclusion of some teenagers in the movement - as they relate to drug trafficking - but certainly not the only reason.
The entrance to the crime, this community occurs in several ways: the appointment of a person trafficking (friends, relatives, etc.).'s Invitation to belong to the gang boss, the request of a parent and / or mother to help survival of the family, among others. However, the most common is to be invited by another teenager, who is also part of the business.
"I joined the firm on the advice of a friend, but my cousin also gave me strength," "I met some guys and slowly I was doing the moves along with them, or felt." Such expressions reaffirm the view of the family, which makes bad friends, incorporating their children to the thug life, "I think he got it because of the bad company of funk balls on the hill" (Father).
The initiation ritual takes place at this moment, where everyone with his life story has a real reason, practical and logical in the way you feel. However, the tendency of society is to generalize this event, explaining it by a single prism: that of poverty. It is common to assign the entry into the crime to the devastating effects of poverty, an issue more visible to explain the mechanisms that this population is to ensure survival. In this deterministic view, the concepts are different, ranging from the view of the favela as a social space unruly or immoral, even the complaint of low wages and high unemployment. There is no doubt that this is one of the factors responsible for the existence of this framework of social paralysis, which is also clearly verbalized by adolescents. "Anyone born in the slum is born marked. We try to be different but without Dindima - popular expression used by adolescents to designate money - do not give, "" Who knows who lives in the slums just going to have good clothes to steal or sell drugs, have more than 10 tennis "," Today my family is not hungry and have more of everything at home. "
It is necessary, however, seek other explanations, still invisible to the eyes of society, beyond the pure logic of linking the crime to poverty to account for the intricate processes that cause increased rates of crime among the youth population.
Indeed, it is difficult to define accurately the parameters that would justify the real reasons that lead these youngsters to opt for the criminal world. The reasons are varied, but no doubt there is one particular aspect that moves them deeply: the representation of power, the image of a hero.A stylized hero of modern times, generated by the drug industry, which makes child soldiers to defend and maintain their interests. Create Robin Hoodianas figures within the band is a way to persuade young people to successfully fulfilling the tasks assigned to them. It is certainly a brainwashing, because even though they feel the vigilantes of modernity, acts inimical to the teachings of the true story of Robin Hood. The movement's philosophy is to make a profit, not distributing or sharing with those in need in the community. Moreover, the perpetuation of poverty is necessary for dominance and submission of its residents. Teens and / or young people are trained to kill and not to defend the weak and oppressed, tortured sadistically those who go against the established norms and do not hesitate to kill anyone. Your imagination is filled with fantasies of heroism. Moreover, trafficking offers them a social status in the scale of the crime.
"I'm in that already twice, the first time I went because he painted opportunity. The second was to recover my strength "(PJS, 17th)" I always wanted to be an expensive responsibility, I think I am now. I feel useful to people. (...) I never killed, but if I need to kill. Just do not esculacho (R.O, 18a).
In this case, the parallel power generated by drug trafficking envisions for them the possibility of acquiring a social identity "marginal", but with strong expression of power and social status in the community where they live. Thus, work on the move represents more than a quick and effective way to get to the enrichment.
It is a narrative full of values and social meanings, which indicates a strong social divide between the young people who are not part of trafficking and those directly linked. Undoubtedly, the advantages to enter and stay in the movement are seen by them as rewarding. "I do not have to go after anyone. I'm the man, man! It is you who have to look for me, what is. " "It is part of our lives have more than one wife. It's the game, man "(B.G.15a). "I think a nice guy, I always give all my family. Respect is not lacking for it, on the hill (LF, 17th). The advantages seem to be common to all, regardless of the purchasing power of households, which may differentiate the level of commitment and prestige that few can achieve within the movement. From there, his respect for the community can grow, especially if a young man who brings benefits to the residents. The culture of drug trafficking, therefore, acts strongly in the identity construction of young people, as it marks its status before the community, society and the world. Moreover, understanding adolescence as part of an essentially dynamic process and linked to their social context, the gear of crime and risks are reflected in this stage of social and emotional education of young people. In this dialectical relationship between subject and social environment, the teenager faces a world full of conflict, hatred and death.
"He who fears death fears life. I face death in the face that neither Cazuza. This was the response of a young man to question about what he thought about death. The atmosphere of adventure, living on the edge of life and death is so intense that many feel challenged to defeat death - because they are very close to her - like Cazuza. Hence, flows the strength to live, dress, be invincible.
I think that death is afraid of me or get tired of me. I've had in every situation I'll tell you. But always escaped me, I'm mischievous. " "... I have my patron saints, pray with them." Being an employee of trafficking, for many, means exercising the ability to be eternal, to break the laws of nature. After all, consider themselves warriors, brave face of a modern world and violent, full of traps where everyone, without exception, are suspect.
Work and death: the same ritual in the lives of young
During the years 1996 and 1997, we search along with some leaders of a slum in northern Rio de Janeiro, the rate of adolescents directly and indirectly involved in trafficking, as well as the number of deaths of young people for trafficking. While not official data, we believe in its validity because it was confirmed by a survey of more leadership in different locations of the slum. In overview, the slum has a young population, aged between 10 and 19 years, with 2665 young people, representing 17.7% of the total population of the community.
Reportedly, there are about 200 slum in adolescents directly involved in trafficking, which corresponds to 7.5% of young people. Some leaders indicated that this number varies depending on the scope of trafficking in bear its payroll. However, this figure rises alarmingly to 16.8% (450) when including adolescents indirectly involved in this market. These are teenagers who occasionally provide services for the movement and receive earnings according to the tasks performed. It remains a strategic way to increase the trafficking complicity youth in this business profitable. When combining these two groups amounts to 24.4% the number of youths involved in trafficking. The mortality rate among young people who work directly is alarming. In 1996, there were 33 deaths, 22 were in action, six summary execution of movement (suspicion of treason) and five caused by fighting among adolescents, in contention for best position in the movement. In 1997, that number nearly doubled, with 57 deaths, 24 in action, 21 and 12 for summary execution because of competition for better jobs. It is noted that homicides between the years 1996 and 1997 reached a ratio of 27% of the population active in the trade, being the biggest cause of murder in the execution group itself.
These data indicate the extermination of the population younger generations, however, invisible in the eyes of society and trivialized within the community itself. The deaths by execution, for the most part, are not counted as murder at the police station in the region, because the bodies are usually brought by traffickers to other neighborhoods, not to attract attention. The voices of families are always silenced by fear of reprisal by the bandits. Residents say sometimes when they sense acts of violence - or when "the beast catches in the community", in popular language - teenagers who have nothing to trafficking end up going into the riddle of death for being a friend of him who betrayed the movement .
"When in doubt of being guilty or not, it is better to prevent. We kill. This example serves as another ... Betrayal has no forgiveness. " Most residents support this kind of conduct: "He told me to do bullshit. Now take lead. Everything is deluded, thinking that thug neighbor is better.Who takes out dancing. "
The reaction of community residents is explained by the fact that young people put the lives of families at risk, before a possible invasion of rival gang, threatening the "peace place".
In this field of business, the young man who follows the career of bandit hardly live long. The issue of death, like the work, assumes different meanings within the historical context of life. In interviews, it was distressing to some teens verbalize the relationship of trafficking with death, as was the case of PG "I never stopped to think about it." At first it's strange to hear this kind of revelation. The construction of psychological defense mechanisms is latent in the story. Nega is a cruel thing that probably will happen sooner or later. For some, talk of death reflects the level of introjection that these adolescents have to trafficking. "If I must die, I die a hero, equal to D.and E. ". Noticed in the testimony that, although I fear death, while the teenager takes a value social status in the community. Turns myth in the world of crime in that community. Depending on the position and role of the trafficker in the slum, his death may give rise to a collective emotion. It is common in such cases, the enactment of an official mourning, the close of trade, assistance to the funeral in buses chartered by the population. Teenagers wear shirts with slogans of nostalgia and lament for what will be forever remembered. However, to reach this stage, there is a whole way of "hero" to be built.
The image of death has been a videotape standing in life and work of these young people. Long ago, she broke their chains full of taboos and went to live with those who closely follow its devastation. Became a force wild, uncontrollable rituals under beatings and gunfire, which manifest themselves in compliance with a law that does not preserve human existence. Teens incorporate the image of "Terminator" (the title of American film) from its destination and a whole generation of young people. This is a landmark where the fantasy ends of the adolescent, the free representation of the inner world of his bitter experience, that transforms your life into poetry of trafficking in Dance of Death, a great spectacle of horror. The savage force is incomprehensible and the feeling can quickly overflow into enthusiasms without justification, that touch the rays of the rapture of heroic melancholy unfounded, of a suicidal act or the latent desire for death. Reveries that are plotting the web of living, which reveal the desires or fantasies about the future of someone who harbors a feeling of hope, the last stage of man facing death. It is with this hope hidden, camouflaged inside, they can verbalize more spontaneous opinions about health and life: "look, being healthy is to live and grow strong." "You have peace." "It is to be happy, nothing else. You may have much food at home, but if you're not cool, you do not feel hungry or to eat. Gee, happiness is everything. I'm in this because I'm looking for it, get it. "
The association made by teenagers between work and slavery is built from their own experience and observation of the hard life of his parents, a negative view of work. Being a slave is to work hard and earn little, doing a job that allows them to create, be audacious. They refuse to this role humiliating or when exercising, they feel oppressed. Unlike the exhausting effort of workers, drug trafficking offers the possibility to earn enough to feel "good about life." It is a process of dynamic work, although highly authoritarian and risky, in which the teen puts all her vivacity in motion. After all, dodge death is an act that requires a lot of trickery, skill and luck.
In this light, the meaning of death and life melts into one movement. For them, life and death have no difference, as BW said: "He who fears death fears life." There is no doubt that the real death is present in the trafficking, but this work of death is both alive and exciting. So far we can say that trafficking is a pure negation of life and health for these youngsters?
Final Thoughts
The situations identified in this study show the fatal consequences of the combination of poverty, living conditions and the capture of young people for work in drug trafficking. There are a devastating effects of poverty facing the possibilities of success or failure offered to these young people by organized crime. Two underlying questions are: poverty that forces families to adopt diverse forms of behavior, which includes up to offer the hand labor of their children for such purposes, and market structure in the absence of appropriate options for incorporation of the quota specific youth population. Clearly, the most decisive of the two-scale factors refers to the opportunities offered by the capitalist economic structure, which is always producing new ways of organizing work. Often they are occupations that put the subjects in brutal conditions of exploitation and insecurity, which are challenges to be faced in everyday life, such as drug trafficking world that already has a large list of people engaged in this lucrative business . It is a perfect market for those not wishing to see their profits suffer any kind of limitation, either by labor laws, either by taxes. As stated Alba Zaluar:
"It's wild capitalism in its purest manifestation, involving practices of what Marx called primitive accumulation, based on plunder and profit commercial exaggerated, with the modern capitalist business logic, but without the control now exercised by the State and organizations civil society. Be in defiance of law? It is then his business advantage. "
Indeed, as literature has shown (Zaluar, Heilborn 1993 & 1997), the daily lives of urban working class has shown a struggle coping with the arduous and rigorous crime gangs / drug dealers.While they are performing functions of jurisdiction of the State, the "traffickers" - or "bandits" as they are called - have played for these sections of the population patterns of relationship marked by patronage and clientelism. The "owners of mouth" provide various aids to the people, help for example in cases of disease, facilitate a financial loan or access to one any good. At the same time, impose an authoritarian regime of law of silence or a curfew for its inhabitants, conveying an air of "security" and "pacification." The combination of living, new codes of social protection and at the same time of submission. However, this does not mean that people easily assimilate the culture of crime, a simple act of refusal or exchange of social laws. Instead, many families try to "win the moral violence of arms," the domination of the gangs. The tragedy is when they realize they are hostages of a rampant urban violence and can do nothing to reverse this situation. Witness the fall of the "moral" and "rise" of marginal groups.
A "low head" of young people who get carried away by bad companions, yet the explanation is repeated by the family to justify the entry of young people into crime. The involvement is strongly enmeshed with the values associated with the ethos of masculinity, power, strength and the ease of forming his harem. Zaluar (1990) reiterates this point when located unemployment or underemployment are not sufficient reasons to explain the adherence of youth to the 'world of crime. " This membership would only be a means illegitimate, according to the social logic of having access to consumer society, which emphasizes the link between goods (particularly clothing) and success with the opposite sex. The adolescent discourse revolves around the valuation of goods such as weapons, tobacco, money and nice clothes, and a willingness to kill. All these figures represent masculinity to be achieved in the passage into the adult world, coupled with the desire for conquest of the girls. For the same author, there is substantial continuity between the social experiences of non-criminals and criminals. There is a radical break that defines the social deviation from normality, but rather different emphasis in the reading of cultural codes. The choice of marginality is thus an exacerbation of the ethos of masculinity, which is present within the "mouth of smoke or toxic to the point of an exclusive boys. The girls, when there appear, are often linked to these figures in the role of lovers. Even the wars between gangs are matters of signs of masculinity valued because they follow a dynamic maintenance of space, which means preserving the inviolability of honor. No wonder that the "world of crime" can mobilize both teenagers, in a frenzied ritual and symbolic between real and fantasy, in which the concepts of health and work products of this process are intrinsically linked with power relations emanating trafficking.
