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The present article deals with ten years of juvenile criminal justice and imprisonment in France. Between 2002 and 2012, under conservative governments, several law reforms have been passed in order to, according to the law-makers, “fight against crime” of juveniles who are supposed to become always younger and more violent. If there is no clear results in terms of criminality statistics, there is evidence that these new rules have become harsher and tend to get closer to criminal proceedings for adult offenders. The political, legislative and practical developments of the last decade need to be approached critically because the instrumentalisation of juvenile criminal justice is on the one hand ineffective towards crime prevention, and on the other because it jeopardizes children´s rights to education and protection at the first place instead of repression.
Keywords: Juveniles; French Criminal justice; Imprisonment; Critical criminology
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