The Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (1990) pointed to new ways of figuring out adolescents infringements. However, there comes a suspicion that a complex negotiation of meanings, constantly marked by a social logic and historically built stereotypes, generated conflicts of practices and ideas of those ones who deal with the law. Thus, it is proposed knowing how the adolescent was portrayed in lawsuits considering the judicial dealing of infringement acts. After careful analysis of twelve adolescents' infringement lawsuits it was identified typical features of irregular situation doctrine, which came with new conceptual content in the manifestations evoked on the basis of the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente. As a conclusion, shared social representations of adolescents in the judicial scope are still anchored in a guardianship model that sees the adolescent as object of law, whose future, in the condition of infractor, must be drawn by the State.
adolescence; irregular situation doctrine; integral protection doctrine; social practices; justice