"In Ceará, crime is spreading"

about criminal factions in the outskirts of the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.

Abstract

This article studies how criminal factions have consolidated in suburban neighborhoods of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, significantly affecting those who live, work, engage politically, and circulate in these territories. Our work aims to analyze what it is like to live this experience and feel how lives are shaped by the command of people who are associated with and willing to use force to control territories, markets, and social routines. It explains how the groups known as factions have shaped their existence in territories bordered by their actions and maneuvered to enforce domination that violates the fundamental rights of local populations in all its dimensions. We show the economic and cultural impact of this experience in the light of qualitative research results and produce a theoretical effort to explain, from a sociological viewpoint, how this social situation was facilitated.