Narratives of young female offenders regarding their passage through the justice system: what about the police?

• In Event: Legitimacy of authority figures and legal socialization in adolescents across different sociocultural contexts

Abstract

In general, passage through the penal system is not comprehensible to citizens. There are several actors with different roles, formal codes of conduct, their own symbols, and technical language that is difficult to understand. This difficulty is greater for Young people. Therefore, the juvenile justice system aspires to make adaptations so that judicial experience can be understood. However, research has demonstrated that adaptation does not always occur. As a result, going through the juvenile justice system is a negative experience for many youths. According to Tyler, this could harm youths’ legal socialization and normative compliance. To better understand these experiences with the penal system, the Criminology and Juvenile Delinquency Research Group at the University of Castilla-La Mancha is conducting biographical interviews with delinquent girls, which are less studied in this field. This paper presents the preliminary results of twenty interviews with girls serving judicial measures in Spain. Girls’ narratives revealed that the treatment they received from the police was harsh. The police appear to be more concerned with demonstrating authority or “teaching them a lesson” than protecting the best interests of the girls. Verbal violence against juvenile offenders and disrespectful treatment were common experiences. The effects of these experiences on the legal socialization process are discussed.

Authors

• Esther Fernandez Molina, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

• Raquel Bartolomé Gutiérrez, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha