The problem presented in this paper is an integral part of a transdisciplinary research project that analyzes the concerns of communities with criminality. The municipality of São Leopoldo is used as a reference in the analysis of the culture of fear related to young offenders. The municipal data reveals that the city has the highest rate of imprisonment of adolescents and the lowest proportion of non custodial measures in the region. These factors, in combination with a lack of information about these methods, place these youngsters in permanent risk of incarceration. In this light, the paper discusses the concepts of vulnerability and social inclusion. It proposes that one of the challenges to non custodial measures is that of social image, in which the poor offending adolescent is defined as a specific type of marginal figure, as a result of the difficulty in distinguishing between belonging and inclusion, between those within and those on the outside, between the exception and the norm.
juvenile violence; urban; inclusion