Preliminary Programme

The Belgian juvenile justice system has been known throughout its 100-year’s existence as a classical welfare oriented model. Still today the Belgian Child protection system, introduced in 1912, is considered as one of the best European representatives of a fully-fledged welfare model (18 years penal responsibility, no sanctions and or punishments but instead protection/welfare measures, and a specialized court, etc.).
However, within this welfare based juvenile justice system detention of minors always “persisted” as a possible and important measure of protection. Hence juvenile detention has always been part of the social reaction towards both delinquent and non-delinquent minors. During its 100-years of existence the Belgian detention of youngsters has known many faces: from detention in adult prison, over reformation school and protection institutions for pedagogical reform to the (re-) birth of juvenile prison. Moreover 19th century penal institutions and écoles de bienfaisance form still today part of Belgian detention landscape.
In this paper we will analyse long-term evolutions in these detention practices. This analysis will take into account not merely institutional and policy changes (or continuities), but also evolutions in detained population and regimes. (Show less)

The analysis of cases of several Belgian juvenile courts (Antwerp, Brussels, Namur, Arlon) revealed questionable practices within some establishments for young delinquents. One institution in particular (Refuge Sainte Madeleine, Brussels), specialized in the rehabilitation of delinquent (and often pregnant) girls, developed suspicious methods of treatment. Indications of dysfunction in this private institution are numerous, and present a lot of similarities with practices observed in Irish Magdalene Asylums: teenage girls employed in a laundry run by a religious congregation, unexplained « disappearances » of the children born to delinquent girls, very high death rates, complaints from minors themselves and from their families regarding forms of negligence and even abuse.

This local example leads us to question the practices of the Belgian protection system, and more specifically, the ‘pedogical approach’ in Magdalena covents. How to describe and explain the ‘pedagogical approach’ implemented within these institutions?

What is the daily life of the institutionalized girls taking into account their living conditions and implemented discipline? Who worked in these private institutions? Were they trained in modern techniques of rehabilitation, and if so, what principles and applications were associated with these techniques? What is the influence of the Belgian separation between public and private sector with the child protection system?

This case also invites us to examine the tension between official discourse and practice and raises questions on gendered reactions within the Belgian system. (Show less)

Throughout its history, the non-delinquent ‘problem child’ has made up an important figure in the Belgian Juvenile Justice System. The first Child Protection Act (1912) enabled the protection and re-education not only of delinquent but also of pre-delinquent (disobedient, tramping and begging) juveniles. With the 1965 Youth Protection Act, the juvenile justice scope was expanded to all ‘children in danger’. Recently in Flanders, after the 1980s state reforms, all non-delinquent ‘problem children’ have been absorbed by the notion ‘problematic educative situation’.

Although scarce, (historical-) criminological research concerning this category provokes two important observations: (1) a whole range of non-delinquent situations and behaviours can lie hidden behind the label of the ‘problem child’; and (2) unlike their rather marginal share in juvenile delinquency, girls seem to hold a more prominent position in the category of non-delinquent ‘problem children’.

We will present a historical overview of the figure of the ‘problem child’ within Belgian Youth Justice. We pay specific attention to its construction and to what extent it may be ‘gendered’.
In addition, we investigate how this retrospective can contribute to the ‘new punitiveness’ debate in contemporary criminology. To this end, we will discuss legislative developments as well as available (historical-) criminological literature. This will be supplemented by data from our own empirical research. (Show less)

The invention of the juvenile court in the early twentieth century gave rise to a transnational movement of which Belgium was a major player. Reconciling legal orthodoxy and the socialization of criminal law practices, this country - where moral tradition meets scientific beliefs and which was a bastion of the doctrine of “social defense” - set up a system of medical and pedagogical guidance to rehabilitate young offenders. Therefore these young offenders were seen as "unajusted" children. From the interwar period on, Belgium played an important role on the international scene, both in the League of Nations and in the International Association of Children’s Judges. We will, on the one hand, examine the influence of local experience in promoting an international model. But, on the other hand, we will also discuss the discursive limits of such propaganda and confront it with an analysis of the institutional practices. (Show less)