Observing gender specific practices within the Belgian Juvenile Justice Court

From an historical perspective, international and Belgian research reveals an attempt of the Juvenile Justice System to extensively control the moral and sexual behaviour of girls. Noteworthy, these concerns hardly existed with regard to the behaviour of boys. Recent research, conducted in the UK and VS, still confirms the persistence of this tendency. 'In practice', the sexuality of girls remains controlled. These findings raise the question about an alleged gendered orientation of the Juvenile Justice System.
In this paper our on - going research, exploring the possible gender - specific nature of the Belgian Juvenile Justice Court, will be discussed. This qualitative research consists out of an analysis of juvenile court records and observations of court cases. Though, our paper primarily focuses on the observations of the court cases. We will take a critical look on the use of this instrument in researching court interactions and gender, and we will dwell on some of the difficulties we encountered. Finally, we will reflect on the first results and compare them with existing national and international research.