Medidas socioeducativas alternativas: avaliação dos efeitos sobre novas ocorrências e habilidades sociais

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the application of alternative socio-educational measures to young offenders. Divided into three chapters, it consists of an essay and an empirical article, as well as a section for final considerations. The first chapter focuses on the infraction and the socio-educational measures, under the legal prism, including on the form of execution of the measures, as well as reflections on the Brazilian legislation, indicating the existing advances as well as the gaps, especially regarding the socioeducational measures in the open. At the end of this chapter, there is a discussion of the interface between Law and Psychology, namely on protective factors. The second chapter is the report of the intervention with juvenile offenders using alternative techniques to traditional ones, with eight male adolescents. Given the lack of studies on this modality of intervention, elements from strategies that already have evidence of effectiveness, such as THS (Social Skills Training) and Moral Behavior Program, were adopted, besides practical elementsas the development of life project, especially for the preparation for entry into the labor market. In this paper, our hypothesis was that the use of alternative socio-educational techniques would strengthen protection factors, for example, the life project, reducing the incidence of infractions. In order to evaluate the results, (a) the frequency of noncompliance of the measure and of new occurrences after the intervention period were calculated, comparing this sample from the same Children's Court but that were allocated in the same period to the traditional socio-educational measures, (b) the repertoire of social skills through the Social Skills Inventory for Adolescents (IHSA-Del- Prette) in two moments, pre and post intervention, (c) participants' behavior during sessions, and (d) a satisfaction of the participants in the intervention. The non-compliance frequency of the alternative measure was 14.28%, much lower than in traditional measures (43.47%); there were no new occurrences related to the research participants, while in traditional measures, a 13% frequency of new occurrences was registered. Regarding social skills, no statistically significant differences were found between pre and post-test. The individual observation of the participants indicated a reduction in the generality of shyness, improvement in cooperation for team activities, and the evolution of a life project, with plans for the professional future by adolescents. Overall, the adolescents evaluated that they were satisfied with the training received, suggesting more practical and external activities. Different forms of evaluation were adopted because it is an unconventional and innovative intervention, anticipating the possibility of the results reflecting the hybrid aspect of the intervention, which may explain the lack of reliable and clinically significant change observed with the application of the JT method. The hypothesis of reduction of occurrences is a preliminary evidence of effectiveness, since none of the eight adolescents who started participating in the intervention was reapprehended as a result of the practice of an infraction, although the sample is small and there is no official data available. On Chapter 3 we discuss the implications of the results for practice and research, as well as future studies, interventions with larger samples are suggested, with the adoption of intervention group and control group, as well as the increase of practical and external activities in less coercive environments adolescents, as sports and cultural spaces.