Prison and adolescence: a contribution of Microsociology to Criminal Sciences: Prison and adolescence: a contribution of Microsociology to Criminal Sciences

Abstract

This paper will treat about the conclusions obtained by an ethnographic study that contrasts the heterogeneity and subjectivity of adolescents against the homogeneous social reintegration programme in Mexico City. This study took into consideration Word of the subjects to understand the meaning of their acts that violate the norm from their biography and takes up their social context; the interaction between criminal policy (laws, programs, norms, decisions, etc.) and this penitentiary population; in Goffman's terms, the use that inmates give to the total institution to obtain benefits; it also made it possible to question the law from a critical position, with which the limits it has to regulate behaviors are obviated. The positions of symbolic interactionism, critical criminology, post-structuralism and psychoanalysis are recovered in order to understand the limits and scope of reintegration programs and their relationship with the socialization of violent offender teenagers.