Abstract

SILVA, Aline Kelly da  and  HUNING, Simone Maria. On the relations between information, maturity, and reduction of the age of criminal responsibility in Brazil. Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2016, vol.18, n.3, pp. 41-53. ISSN 1516-3687.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5935/1980-6906/psicologia.v18n3p41-53.

This paper discusses how the proposals to reduce the age of criminal responsibility in Brazil link the expansion of information technologies and the mass media to a change in maturity of young people. Applying the archaeological method of Michel Foucault we analyze the constitutional amendment proposals presented by the country's Chamber of Deputies between 1993 and 2013. The discourses produced by these materials associate the media and information technologies with an early psychic maturation of young people and a greater degree of judgment. Thus, they propose a shift of chronological criteria for accountability in the technical evaluation of maturity, summoning experts to support judgments. We arrive at the conclusion that from the effects of social processes, such as access to information, the documents propose more individualization of forms of punishment on young people, implying political and ethical conflicts about the role of psychology in this context.

Keywords : age of criminal responsibility; development; youth; archaeology; genealogy.

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