A study about families of children and teenagers who were victims of violence and faced judicial intervention.

The goal of this study was to track the steps of families that committed some kind of violence against their children and faced judicial intervention, as well as to explore their perceptions about the events involving such intervention; to quantify and assess the lawsuits, during the period from 2000 to 2005, characterizing situations of family violence and re-victimization. The study was theoretically based on the ecological context of human development. The methodology employed was quantitative-qualitative. The tools used were: analysis of the proceedings, filling out census maps, elaboration of genogram and ecomap. The analysis was based on dialectic hermeneutics. The results showed that there were 1766 lawsuits at the court, 8.21% of which were linked to family violence. Three empirical categories came up: I didn't have, which portrays a kind of childhood where negation was a constructive element of interactions, perversely engendered in the economic, political and institutional universes; "It doesn't help and it won't change anything" showed a Judicial System that did not understand society and its conflicts, and "In the street", featuring everyday routines of social exclusion.