Young offenders in correctional centres. A look inside

Abstract

The central objective pursued here is to learn about the perceptions that young offenders with criminal responsibility have regarding the practices of the system for re-education and re-socialization that attempts to provide an answer to their needs and problems (as established in Spanish Law 5/2000). We have considered, for the purposes of this aim, that the most favourable sphere for discovering what the actors themselves have to say is to be found in the type of measures applied in centres where there is loss of liberty, in which the effects of the system and the consequences arising from face-to-face relations between educator and offender can be seen most directly, with the least possible tainting by influences from other agents. It is in this context that it is possible to make a better appraisal of therepercussions that discourses on the aims pursued (re-socialization and emancipation of the minor) and, in particular, the coherence that can be expected between the social and personal needs of the minor being held in custody.