The goal of this thesis is to analyze the trajectory of care policy for the poor teenager, accused and sentenced in court, for committing acts comparable to crimes having as a starting point, the proposed actions by the Brazilian State, materialized through the normative proposition and specific institutions designed for this population, from the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic. Taking as the focus of this research, the peculiarity of the care given to underage infringer under the aegis of National Welfare of Children Foundation (FUNABEM) established in 1964, and its current expression, referenced by the Children and Adolescents Statute and, in a special way, by the National System of Socio-Educational Services promulgated in 2012 we highlight the attempt for understanding the role of assistance in the care provided to the group of teenagers herein, since the beginning of this kind of actions, to the contemporary context in which social assistance reaches the status of social security policy in the light of the Constitution of 1988. For the following analysis we consider that is in the contradiction between actions aimed at compulsory confinement, referring processes of criminalization and punishment and the spread of protective speeches based on the provision of assistance aimed at regeneration, which is aimed historically public policy for the poor adolescents considered delinquents in Brazil. We understand that, while the actions to this group of teenagers established as protective measures through food concession, refuge, education and vocational training, such actions have been informed, ideological and sometimes objectively, in punishment processes, printed by the logic of disciplining the poor, directed by the capitalist State, by means of restraint and seclusion in closed institutions, those considered dangerous. Even if living historically together, the poles of protection and punishment are balanced or change like a pendulum between the deepening of course punitive actions and those related to the protection and assistance, which is balanced movement or tending to one extreme or the other, according with tensions inscribed in social organization and direction present in every context and historical period of our society.