In 2015, Debora Diniz, a professor at the University of Brasília and researcher at Anis, began an ethnographic research at the Santa Maria youth detention center, inhabited by adolescent girls deprived of their liberty. After over a year following a group of socio-educational agents on duty, Diniz sought to understand what would be the “educational facility” for the detention measures, as determined by Brazil’s Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA). Her findings are presented in this study, funded by the National Office for the Rights of Children and Adolescents of the Ministry of Human Rights (SNDCA/MDH). Three main aspects are analyzed: the precariousness of the girls’ lives before arriving at the facility; the experience of time inside the facility; and their helplessness at the end. Data, photos, and letters from adolescents who lived in the socio-educational detention center in the Federal District are urgent evidence for the need to guarantee the rights of adolescents in conflict with the law in the country.
