Governar os desgovernados: disputas pela construção de verdade sobre usuários de drogas nos discursos de profissionais da justiça

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Ravagnani, Otávio
• Orientador(a): Sinhoretto, Jacqueline
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de São Carlos; Câmpus São Carlos
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia - PPGS
• Palavras-chave em Português: Drogas; Controle social; Discursos; Profissões da Justiça; Poder psiquiátrico
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CIENCIAS HUMANAS::SOCIOLOGIA::OUTRAS SOCIOLOGIAS ESPECIFICAS
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14289/22127

The objective of this research is to understand the construction of truth about drug users through the discourses of professionals linked to the legal field. To this end, a documentary analysis was conducted on rulings from the São Paulo Court of Justice regarding compulsory hospitalization and the ruling of the Federal Supreme Court on the judgment of Extraordinary Appeal No. 635.659, which concerns the decriminalization of personal marijuana consumption. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with Public Defenders from São Paulo, along with bibliographic research. It was found that legal field agents engage in a “tug of war” between positions that value “individual autonomy” and those that advocate for “subject guardianship.” In this sense, in order to validate their positions, these agents employ a range of strategies related to their position in the field, power disputes, action possibilities, and the timing and context of the dispute. A prevailing notion seems to suggest that certain drugs, especially crack cocaine, lead to a “loss of self” due to substance use, justifying the guardianship of these individuals and their submission to institutional control. Thus, treatment approaches led by psychiatrists and based on isolation emerge as the “last resort” to recover the “lost self.” In this matter, professional boundaries between legal and psychiatric knowledge-power become blurred: while the former must validate their decisions through the expertise of the latter, they can also order the production of reports that support their decisions. The strategies employed by those advocating for “individual autonomy” seek to “reveal what is hidden” in laws, regulations, and legal mechanisms, whereas those in favor of “subject guardianship” focus on substances and their harmful potential, structuring their discourse in terms of “social defense,” particularly through the lens of “family protection.”