Social Control structures in Central America versus the will of young people to leave violence

Emilio Goubaud, Interpeace / APREDE

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This article reflects on the mechanisms of integration and social control (family, school, work, police, and detention centers) of adolescents and young criminals coming to commit crimes, searching for an analysis of the structural factors with the subjectivity of the offenders. As to why the mechanisms of social integration have become inefficient, the "social inclusion" operates through social control; and how the social system excludes and doesn’t integrate.

The weakness of States in the northern region of Central America, to resolve non-criminal disputes (labor, civil, family, farming), does nothing to prevent these conflicts transcending into the criminal field, where the largest percentage of cases are concentrated.

The North Triangle of Central America has maintained widespread institutional weaknesses, which is reflected by the absence of standards, policies and sufficient measures to collect the sense of public service, and seeking that the authorities take the responsibility that implies a state in terms of rights of all people, without discrimination.

Our States have the duty to take effective measures to prevent and punish criminal acts. This requirement becomes more demanding when it is known that the actions taken previously were neither adequate nor effective. The lack of political will or the reproduction of ineffective measures before a widespread violence situation, in themselves, constitute a non-compliance of the region States’ obligations.

During the past seventeen years I have worked with adolescents and youth at risk on the streets, in their sites (clicas), in their neighborhoods, I have implemented many approaching methods so that they would become interested in the possibility of integrating the society; I have also made efforts to articulate and coordinate activities in official spaces to try to get reasonable and intelligent answers to address the youth; places for reflection and follow up on specific cases for long periods have been sought, in order to demonstrate their insertion into society as productive and useful, but the setbacks have been bigger than the answers of our States, so that they leave the violence without being stigmatized, criminalized, excluded, marginalized, imprisoned or killed.

I would like to take this opportunity to refer certain control mechanisms that do not allow many young people within our systems to be inserted and have access to its full development, focusing our attention on the background and on the criminal police record, the main cause that a teenager and an adolescent cannot have access to opportunities to study and work.

Other authors emphasize the role of family affection, others emphasize the formation function and others emphasize the economic function. So the family can be a space of love, an area of stability that makes possible productivity out of it, or a "police" that governs the conduct and moral standards of its members (Donzelot, 1990). Whatever way that is understood, the family must meet certain functions as a vehicle for social integration of its members. What about the families of those who are violating the law?

In these cases, the family may exist or may be completely absent. Where it exists, is characterized as dysfunctional - that is, not fulfilling its expected functions, which usually manifests itself in the absence of a father and the emergence of that figure in a stepfather, who usually drinks alcohol in excess and is violent, either with the mother and with her children (stepchildren). Here we see violence as an element of socialization and a way of relationship. The family is also characterized by not meeting the basic needs of the child, because the parents are living in precarious conditions, with low levels of schooling and work in low-paying jobs, except those enrolled in criminal activities and can give some economic breathing space, but have to pay the high cost of going to and coming from jail.

The delivery of skills and knowledge, the disciplinary measure of unwanted behaviors and integrating into the world outside the family environment, are some elements that characterize the school. What happens to the violators of the law?

The school appears as a strong normative area, where a set of codes are transmitted. They often differ from those that exist in the family of children and adolescents living in contexts of exclusion. Thus, while adolescents are unable to adapt to the education system, educational establishments fail to adapt their practices to the characteristics of the students called "problem children", who often have learning problems, hyperactivity or attention deficit, may be impulsive or aggressive, or simply do not fit into the formal education system, besides being stigmatized, marginalized and excluded by their appearance (tattoos and clothing). The school desertion is the corollary of this complex relationship and, as some studies have stated (Gottfredson et al, 1996), the earlier the school desertion, the more likely that this individual will develop a criminal behavior. School desertion is highly correlated with the initiation and recurrence of crime. According to NAME (2001), from the youngsters served by the network itself, until October 2001, dropout rates are particularly high among adolescents arrested for crimes against persons (39.3%) and property crimes (35%). However, this relationship should not be read in both directions: for example, while an important part of adolescent inmates are deserters, the majority did not end up involved in the crime.

The problem in our countries is that many children, adolescents and youth are found excluded from the formal system of education; that means that they do not even have had the opportunity to study. Guatemala for instance, after Haiti, is the country with the biggest illiteracy rates.

The Work

Work is the classic mechanism of social integration, it allows to enter a social and institutional area that no other makes this possible. Not only generates an income required to survive and integrate into the market through consumption, but is also linked to mechanisms of social security and health provision; creating social networks, expanding the circle of relations and is also responsible for setting the positions within the social stratification, defining the possessed status. Ultimately, it opens the doors to social integration. In fact, the theories on social exclusion arise precisely about structural unemployment and a society that should know how to run a segment of its population sentenced to the rest of this dimension of life, to be a supernumerary (Castel, 1997; Rosanvallon, 1996).

Thus, the work is a dimension that takes on different meanings in the case of those living in situations of exclusion. At the macro level, the areas of poverty are excellent areas where there are higher rates of unemployment and are precisely those territories inhabited by greater proportion of people in conflict with the law, so that unemployment in itself is a risk factor of crimes and youth unemployment even more. However, not only the shortage of jobs is a risk factor but also the impossibility of access to these social controls that states have implemented in our compromise with the countries’ productive sectors, specifically the police and criminal background, which is a repressive, exclusionary and marginal that will not give opportunities to people who at some time committed a crime, or transgressed the law or were simply accused of something by someone and were filed as criminals. In many countries of the world, the police files represent a background document or tool for judges to sanction and punish, it is a private document, not a public document that serves as a prerequisite for obtaining employment or admission to a school.

It is worth mentioning that many prevention programs that are implemented in Central America are constitutional banners, flags which had to come from civil society. Such thing happens due to the indifference of our states and our politicians towards the youth sector, seen as State enemies and not as citizens who need investments to develop.

Our struggle is aiming at opportunity and not at revenge, on the side of social crime prevention rather than punishment and imprisonment. There must be a huge difference in the approach and not keep pretending to dynamic the topic of prevention from the public security aim. We failed to address the effects of the problem from the police reaction and law enforcement, we have not wanted to confront the fact of impending conflict in which our states lost their governance, it is an urgent need to address the conflict in a comprehensive manner, listening to the youth, sitting with them and finding a collective (the State and society) solution.

Conclusions

There are stories and efforts of success on the prevention of youth violence in Central America; however, they had no impact on the scale of the problem of youth violence in the region. The indifference of our states does not allow these efforts to become national programs. Social investment and social building are still broken and damaged, there are many legal measures, laws and rules that establish the limits of action for adolescents and youth in our countries, but so far, no public policy prevention of youth violence, obliging the request of our governments to provide development opportunities for children, adolescents, and young people in Central America.

Today in Central America there are spaces for youth participation, youth networks that express their desires in different ways, demanding attention and participation, generating proposals and training themselves to break into the political environment aiming to build a new Central America. We have international agencies that have decrypted the urgent need for governments to turn to look at adolescents and young people of our countries in different ways, investing in them and recognizing them as present and as pillars of productivity improvement to globalization. There are also agencies and national counterparts who have undertaken the fight to develop initiatives that provide opportunities for this sector’s inclusion in decision making and finally betting on their capacity to build a better region.

I am currently working in the momentum of regional public policy proposals for prevention, I refuse to accept and maintain the outrage over the 36 violent deaths per day in the North Triangle Countries of Central America, 21 of whom are younger than 25 years of age. We want a region with a capacity to live in harmony and freedom, a change in attitude of politicians and government institutions in terms of children and youth in Central America.

Translation: Bruno Lobo Motta. Revision: Gabriela Dutra.

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