Based on the ethnographic work and group interviews with young people from two Rio de Janeiro favelas, this article problematizes the category ‘involved-with (taken from the everyday language) crime and its services’, as a fluid social control device that creates moving borders which serve to “unequalize” the unequal. This shows how this notion has been mobilized in the selective distribution of surveillance and punishment of youths in the suburbs. Its functionalities are discussed in the regulation of trajectories and identity paths, highlighting a profiling web that ends up blurring the meaning between the notions of “criminal” and “vulnerable.” The activation of moralities that justify the self-management of the favela inhabitants is analyzed. It reveals an ambition of police custody maximized by the appetite for criminalization not only of individuals, but also of their social relations.
Keywords:
Involvement; Youths; Social control; Surveillance; Social vulnerability