Primeiro grupo catarinense e a governança criminal em Santa Catarina

Abstract

The aim of the research was to analyze the history, development, operations, and organizational structure of the Primeiro Grupo Catarinense, PGC, in Santa Catarina, the main criminal organization operating in the state. To this end, using an inductive method, employing auxiliary research for exploratory understanding, bibliographic, and documentary research, and conducting verification studies through bibliographic review and field studies, the objective is to explore the context in which the organization was created, the events that shaped its development and rise, the state's response to the criminal group, and then analyze the criminal governance, based on the conceptualization developed by Lessing, exercised by the gang. The gang emerged in 2003 and developed within the Santa Catarina prison system, took to the streets and was responsible for waves of attacks throughout the state in the 2010s, and since 2015 has been fighting a bloody war against the PCC, the largest criminal organization in the country. The research showed that the criminal group has a well-structured hierarchical organization and its own consolidated normative system, with intense criminal governance towards its members and non-member criminals, as well as governing non-criminal civilians, but with less intensity. Governance is exercised in symbiosis with the state, through the practice of various functions, being an expanding organization, with the potential to become one of the main gangs in the country.