Criminalization and the Rights-Bearing Subject: Considering the Lived Experiences of Governance in the Juvenile Court

Abstract

Considerations of the legal rights of incarcerated juveniles are often concerned with the myriad ways in which due process rights are circumscribed, abridged, or undermined by the operations of the juvenile court (e.g., Berkheiser, 2016; Cleary, 2017; Feld, 1999; Rapisarda & Kaplan, 2016). Studies of youth legal consciousness have additionally sought to explore the role of media, legal status, court experiences, and even parents in the formation of youth attitudes about the justice system (e.g., Abrego, 2011; Brisman, 2010; Greene, Sprott, Madon, & Jung, 2010; Pennington, 2017). This chapter builds on this work by exploring the way rights shaped the everyday lives of incarcerated youth. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in a juvenile hall, this chapter explores three different moments outside of a formal legal context where the invocation of due process rights limited the self-expression and exploration of incarcerated youth. In each of these cases, the invocation of protecting due process rights by adults served to stifle youth efforts to remake juvenile hall as a place open and receptive to their needs. These three moments demonstrate that rights project a particular legal vision onto a world that does not neatly conform to the reality in which youth lived. For these reasons, the consideration of legal rights for youth must also consider how these rights can forestall the very transformation in circumstances that many youth seek.

Citation

Brown, E. and Smith, A. (2020), "Criminalization and the Rights-Bearing Subject: Considering the Lived Experiences of Governance in the Juvenile Court", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Studies in Law, Politics, and Society (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 82), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 93-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-433720200000082005