Nation’s future or evil spawn? Looks directed at the Dois Rios Corretional Colony’ inmates and youth management in the First Republic (1910-1920)

Abstract

The present article evaluates the childhood management by the Federal District Police, whose responsibility was to ensure the social order, and the magistracy of the Appeals Chamber, whose responsibility was to analyze the habeas corpus solicitations sent to detained children from the Dois Rios Correctional Colony, – through 1910 to 1920. Created by the republican government in 1893, the institution managed by the police was supposed to correct for work, convicted adults and adolescent offenders in Ilha Grande (RJ). In view of this, the emphasis falls on police work, since it was up to its agents to investigate the lives of detained children and their families, in addition to producing representations about them. Thus, it is asked about the guidelines that guided the agents responsible for deciding the destinations of the inmates in Dois Rios. Likewise, we investigated the speeches made by the adolescent offenders and their families in order to convince the chief of police that they were worthy of freedom. Finally, we seek to outline the profile of the adolescent offenders’ families. The theoretical references are centered on the studies of Foucault, Bretas, Godelier, among others. It is believed that by revisiting the children and adolescents’ management, they contributed to the writing of a social history of abandoned childhood in the First Republic.