Perfil criminal: instrumento de criminalização da pobreza

Abstract

The present work aims to analyze how the criminal profile historically becomes an instrument of criminalization of poverty, understanding its relationship with the ideas of eugenics and mental hygiene and the role of psychology in its proposition. Criminal profiling is an investigation technique, initially developed in the United States, which makes it possible to predict the characteristics of a criminal based on the behaviors displayed in the commission of a crime. Our study is classified as a bibliographical and documentary research, centered on primary sources, Eugenia newsletters, Mental Hygiene archives and bibliographic works by psychiatrists Nina Rodrigues and Cesare Lombroso. Data analysis was based on critical criminology, inspired by Marxism. This method was chosen because we understand that discussions that cross criminality, without this critical eye, can generate debates and preconceptions based on criminal selectivity and criminalization of poverty. Based on the research carried out, we found that, like eugenics and mental hygiene, the criminal profile reproduces scientific racism and individualizes criminality, attributing to it causes based on positivist theory and natural sciences. Furthermore, the indicated therapy is also similar, as it focuses on incarceration, moral and religious treatment and work. Historically, those who trigger the social contradictions of Capital were and are targets of interventions based on eugenics, mental hygiene and criminal profiling: poor and black men. With regard to psychology, we found that positivist psychological knowledge has become one of the main tools for consolidating the criminal profile. The psychologist, when providing possible criminal profiles, considering factors such as: where the subject lives, his appearance or biological aspects and not being able to make a critical reading of why these are the main suspects, does not fulfill the role of critical psychology. We seek to reinforce that mass incarceration is not the solution, but the problem. The prevention of this fact lies in the promotion of quality public policies that ensure social rights. Our study sought to show that violence is a collective production and not an individual one, it does not happen due to behaviors intrinsic to individuals, but that they were conditioned by our social construction, which prioritizes the interests of the elite.