Young Offenders and Open Custody

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Juvenile Custody, Gender, and Attitudes Towards Crime

Abstract

The presented book examines the significance of custodial openness during youth custody sentences, both for everyday life at the institutions in which these sentences are served and for reoffending. The book is based on a Swedish study that examines levels of reoffending over time among youths sentenced to youth custody, and which also analyses the significance of various types of institutional leave and of having been placed in an open rather than a secure unit. Institutional staff and youths have been interviewed about everyday life at the youth custody institutions, how institutional leave constitutes a part of this everyday environment and about its significance for the time spent in youth custody and the time after. The theoretical frameworks starts in a combination of Goffman and Foucualt, with connections to newer Foucauldian prison research. The possibility to experience custodial openness are related both to lesser reoffending and better possibilities for re-entry, but it is also (via its connection to demand of well behaviour) vulnerable for harsh disciplining techniques with both destructive relationships between staff and youths, and resistance to change as a consequence.

Author

• Tove Pettersson, Stockholm University