Entre grades e promessas: o abismo entre o discurso jurídico e a realidade socioeducativa no Brasil sob a lente de “Vigiar e punir” de Michel Foucault

The National Council of Justice (CNJ) is the body responsible for monitoring and super-vising the situation of socioeducational centers in Brazil. The most recent survey of these centers began at the end of 2024, providing updated data on the conditions in which chil-dren and adolescents live in these spaces. In a country like Brazil, where poor, Black, and peripheralyouth are frequently the primary targets of the panoptic gaze of social control agents, it is not surprising that they constitute the majority of the incarcerated population. This research focuses on the discrepancy between legal discourse and the realityof soci-oeducational centers in Brazil, particularly the conditions experienced by adolescents in conflict with the law. The central research question guiding this study is: How does the legal discourse of protection and rehabilitation for adolescents in conflict with the law contrast with the reality experienced in Brazilian socioeducational centers? The theoreti-cal framework is based on Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishand Loïc Wacquant’s Prisons of Poverty. This choice is justified by the relevance of the concept of “panopti-cism” in understanding the logic of control, surveillance, and punishment within the so-cioeducational system. Foucault offers a critical perspective that unveils how disciplinary mechanisms reproduce within institutions,sustaining social order and the exclusion of specific groups, particularly Black and poor youth. The study adopts a qualitative ap-proach, grounded in the methodology proposed by Minayo (2016). It employs a descrip-tive and bibliographic bias based on the parameters of Gil (1999), combined with a com-prehensive analytical focus grounded in Weber’s (2009) perspective. The research reveals a significant gap between the legal discourse of rehabilitation and the daily practices in socioeducational centers. The data show that precarious conditions, overcrowding, lack of resources, and the predominant punitive approach in these institutions reinforce the social and racial exclusion of the adolescents detained there. Furthermore, the promise of rehabilitation rarely materializes, as the absence of adequate educational and professional programs perpetuates a cycle of marginalization.