In the current situation of delinquent violence in Venezuela, the rise in violence rates is not the most relevant aspect; it is rather the increase in the lethality of aggressions. That is expressed in the growth in homicide and armed robberies. Such rise in the violent character of delinquency is generated within a context in which the State shows its highest deficiency, both regarding police apparatus (inability to respond to complaints, process them and arrest the delinquent) and the justice system (delay and negligence in imposing punishment). Impunity makes society fearful and establishes a perception of danger in everyday life. This state of mind leads to privatization and informalization of safety by distinct strategies, among which the closure of residential areas - hiring private security personnel and, at the extreme, joining illegal organizations that offer protection to people and property. Those types of protection cannot be examined within the classical conception of social control, since they do not concern policies that ground prevention upon the exercise of a socializing control, in which the deviant individual is seen as the main objective of the intervention. They rather regard the expectation of the decrease in the risk of private life being affected by delinquent violence-related situations. The article presents three approaches on the subject, which could facilitate the explanation of that phenomenon, and offers the results of an investigation related to those new forms of social control.
social control; violence; privatization and informalization of social control
