Abstract
This paper focuses on the reasoning of Youth justice professionals on delinquent Roma who appear before the Youth Court in Belgium. Own previous work shows that although these minors only represent a small share of the Belgian Youth Court population they stand out because of their specific profile. As a consequence Youth justice professionals perceive them as hardly approachable and as untreatable which hinders a constructive intervention and results in a predictable reaction of the Youth Court (De Bus & Nuytiens 2016; De Bus Petintseva & Nuytiens 2017). In this paper we drawn on interviews with juvenile judges magistrates of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and juvenile attorneys. We take a critical look at the perceptions and ideas of these Youth justice professionals in dealing with delinquent Roma. We will reflect on how issues of migrancy (i.e. Chambers 1993) affect the existing judicial practice and question the conditions governing access to these legal professions in youth law and justice.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | European Society of Criminology, 19th Annual Congress 2019 - Ghent |
Pages | 221-222 |
Publication status | Published - 19 Sep 2019 |
Keywords
- Juvenile lawyer
- Roma minors
- Delinquency