Uso do território e violência na região Metropolitana de Maceió

Abstract

At the turn of the last century, homicidal violence soared to epidemic levels in the territory of Alagoas, reaching its peak at the threshold of this second decade. Led by the capital, the 13 (thirteen) municipalities that make up the Metropolitan Region of Maceió (MRM), started to live with high homicide rates, reaching 96 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants in 2011. For comparison, the Organization of United Nations (UN), considers epidemic rates above 10 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants. Seeking to understand this situation, the aim of the research was to analyze and characterize the MRM and its municipalities as the most prominent components in the list of the most violent in Brazil, in the light of the territorial formation process of the state of Alagoas, focusing on the inequality scenarios, underdevelopment and violence currently experienced. From a methodological point of view, apart from the theoretical framework, the analysis of the homicide rate allowed comparisons to be made with the whole of Alagoas, as well as with the national reality. Thus, it was possible to identify a territory, for a long time, structured according to the sugarcane monoculture that fostered a markedly unequal society. In turn, this reality allows some of the main agents that promote violence, the criminal factions, to find in this part of the state, the appropriate environment to develop their operations. The most vulnerable victims in this context are the poor and black youths who, serving as a kind of rank and file, kill each other in the face of inertia by the public authorities. Currently, when looking at the numbers, the picture seems to be stabilized, even though no relevant action has been taken outside the scope of public security (to be more specific, the military and civil police), which implies a well-founded fear in relation to the possibility of new explosions in homicidal violence, because despite advances from the socioeconomic point of view, the state remains in a situation very similar to that which caused the homicidal rise registered in the first decade of the century.