Redes Sociais em Práticas de Delinquência Juvenil: Usos e Ilícitos Recenseados na Justiça Juvenil em Portugal

Maria João Leote de Carvalho

doi:10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).3988

Authors

Maria João Leote de Carvalho Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1490-1398

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).3988

Keywords:

young people, social media, digital practices, delinquency, youth justice

Abstract

Currently, the strong involvement of young people in social media raises questions about potential multiplier effects on risks and opportunities for delinquent practices. It is not always easy to distinguish a harmless online action, an integral part of the social and relational experimentation typical of adolescence, from a fact that will constitute an unlawful act subject to judicial intervention. This article seeks to understand and discuss how the use of social media is materialized in the facts, defined as a crime by the criminal law, perpetrated by young people aged between 12 and 16, in the context of youth justice in Portugal. It is based on an exploratory analysis of qualitative information collected in a Family and Children Court from youth justice proceedings concerning 201 young people of both sexes. Just under a third of this population was proven to have been involved in unlawful acts using social media at three levels: planning/organization, execution and dissemination. Multiple participation in social media is dominant. There is a significant overrepresentation of girls as perpetrators of unlawful acts, especially those involving a high degree of violence, embodying the online-offline continuum. Most of the analysed facts of both sexes have at their epicentre the perception that personal honour has been attacked and requires reparation. From there, it is a short step to violence, which can lead to a reconfiguration and exchange of roles between victim and aggressor, which is not always easy to prove. For both sexes, the relationships established in school dominate the interaction between aggressors-victims. More than the anonymity afforded by the digital, what stands out is the need for affirmation in public and/or semi-private space, and violent action is the catalyst to gain respect through the instant gratification offered by social media in an online-offline continuum embodying the “onlife” (Floridi, 2017) that characterizes the lives of young people today.

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Author Biography

Maria João Leote de Carvalho, Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Maria João Leote de Carvalho has a PhD in sociology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon (2011). She is currently an assistant researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, under a research contract awarded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (2021.00384.CEECIND), where she coordinates the line of research on Rights, Policy and Justice. She researches public policies on justice and the protection of children and young people, the rights of the child, delinquency, crime and violence, and uses of digital technologies in childhood/youth. She is a founding member of the thematic sections on Sociology of Law and Justice (2014) and Sociology of Childhood (2018) of the Portuguese Association of Sociology. She is a member of the Child-Friendly Justice European Network (2019), European Council for Juvenile Justice/International Juvenile Justice Observatory (2009–2020), the Thematic Working Group on Juvenile Justice/European Society of Criminology (2017) and the European Communication Research and Education Association (2014).

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