Description
Previous research suggests an alleged gendered orientation of the Youth Justice System implying that during decision-making practices different attitudes and perceptions would exist regarding girls and boys. International and national research has indicated a persistence of controlling the sexual behaviour of girls, concerns that hardly exist towards boys. In addition, significant differences are found between girls and boys in the reporting documents of the court case files.In own research, we explored the gendered orientation of two Dutch-speaking Youth Courts by analysing 120 Youth Court case files (delinquent and non-delinquent cases), 56 Youth Court hearings and 10 semi-structured interviews with Youth Judges and Youth Public Prosecutors. In this paper, we specifically focus on how is reported on individual vulnerabilities of boys and girls who appear before the Belgian Youth Court with an emphasis on two aspects: the self-image of the minor and psychological difficulties. Our analysis indicates that being a boy or a girl affects the construction and problematisation of boys and girls. We discuss how these constructions and problematisations reflect the gendered orientation of the Belgian Youth Court.
| Periode | 22 sep 2022 |
|---|---|
| Evenementstitel | 22nd Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology |
| Evenementstype | Conference |
| Locatie | Malaga, Spain |
| Mate van erkenning | International |