This article deals with the strategies to combat crime in the nineteenth century, showing that they were connected to practices and moral speeches that stereotyped different social characters. It is perceived that figures like the peasant, the young and the child appeared in a reverse image of the dominant civility. The education and formation topic was left behind by concerns over the public morals and the refusal of the practices which are different from the rule. The approach shows examples belonging to Brazil and France. Among the sources, there are: works of a fiction nature, monographs, reports and specialized bibliography. The methodology aims to evidence the aspects of the sensibilities and of the social beliefs connected to the formation of the child and the young. It is desired to both bring back the alternative dimensions of the historical process and to rise questions about the bases of our devices of emotion control.
History of Violence; Nineteenth Century; Education