Youth Justice Magistrates’ perspectives on Romani Girls and delinquency: Blurred boundaries?

In this paper, we will focus on delinquent Romani girls who appear before the Youth Court in Belgium. In our previous work based on judicial court files analysis we have argued that although these girls only represent a small share of the Belgian Youth Court population, they stand out because of their specific profile. Youth justice professionals perceive them as hardly approachable and as untreatable. The question of approachability is linked to the closed character of Roma communities, which results in a lack of information on the girl’s identity, age and social context. The problem of untreatability is linked to the language barrier, the lack of questioning of property offences and the perceived negative influence of the family/community. These factors are seen as important obstacles hindering a constructive intervention, which results in a predictable and dual reaction of the Youth Court (De Bus & Nuytiens, 2016). Drawing on interviews with juvenile judges and with magistrates of the Public Prosecutor’s Office we will elaborate on this topic. While in the first paper we mainly focused on how the Romani girls were described in the case files by policemen, social workers and psychiatrists, in the current paper we will focus on the perspective of the decision-makers. First, we will explore their perceptions and opinions with regard to these girls and their contexts. Second, we will discuss how they deal with these girls and which reactions they consider as (in)appropriate. The results will be linked to the ambivalent position of these girls in the system, referring to the thin line between victim and offender.