In what kind of correctional care are juveniles incarcerated?

A study of the Norwegian youth units

Abstract

The Norwegian youth units are organised under the Correctional Care Services and are for juveniles between the ages of 15-18 who have committed serious crimes. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, together with the Norwegian Penal Code, shall frame the content of these units. The article uses the terms prison architecture, carceral TimeSpace and touch as analytical tools to clarify the content of these devices. The material is based on a prison ethnographic study that has been ongoing from 2013 to 2018. The article shows that the youth units are in practice high-security prisons, where the children and young people are considered to have complex problems and that it is challenging to prepare these children and adolescents for a therapeutic milieu within a penal enforcement regime. The study has empirical relevance in a Nordic context where the criminal age is currently being discussed and where the relationship between child welfare and criminal care is again on the agenda. The article is relevant in the training of prison officers, for students in health and social sciences, as well as for teachers and therapists working with children and adolescents in criminal justice, child welfare and other social and healthcare institutions.