Preliminary Programme

The juvenile court model has been branded throughout the Western world during the first half of the twentieth century as the most adapted way to deal with juvenile delinquents . This model then gained the support of dedicated international networks and associations which actively and efficiently promoted its international diffusion during the interwar years.
Much less is known about the subsequent evolution both of the model and of its international supporters and promoters after World War II, even though the issue of youth benefitted from a renewed relevance during this period. This paper aims to study precisely how the issue of juvenile delinquency has become a major societal issue in international forums during the postwar period, taking into account the archives of a dedicated non-governmental organization set in Geneva, the International Union for Child Welfare. Through several internal commissions such as its "Advisory Board on delinquent and socially inappropriate youth", created in 1948, this NGO has been closely associated with various international forums dealing with the evolution juvenile courts in the post-war era. We will focus on the one hand on the role of this organization in debates dealing with some crucial evolutions affecting the model (training of educators, scientific methods of observation of minors, group psychotherapy ..), and secondly on the various circulatory mechanisms set up in order to ensure the diffusion of the model as part of development aid policies established by the organization, contributing to the export of Western management models of juvenile delinquency, and paradigms underpinning them .
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The Montreal Juvenile Delinquents Court was the first juvenile court in Quebec (Canada). It was established in 1912 and remained in existence until it was replaced by a new court in 1950. During its first three decades, it dealt with children up to the age of 15. In 1942, the age of criminal majority was raised in Quebec: considered so far as adults, 16 and 17 years old would now be considered as juveniles, and they would “benefit” from the provisions of the Juvenile delinquents Act. The expectation was that this new older juvenile population would simply add itself to the already existing younger one and increase significantly the total juvenile court population. Looking back at what happened, we can observe that the situation turned out to be quite different. Based on a sample of juvenile court files, the presentation will describe how the court’s population was deeply changed, and it will propose some explanations for what can be safely described as a major turning point in the practice of youth justice in Quebec. (Show less)

Following the United States’ example, whereby children no longer were jailed after the end of the 19th century, Spain established a judicial system specifically devised for minors in 1918. On seizing power at the end of the Civil War (1936-1939), Franco found a network of juvenile courts and reformatory schools that had been hardly reformed by previous political regimes. In a context of brutal political repression and of social and demographical urgency, did the Francoist regime modify the workings of juvenile courts in order to implement its political and ideological aims? This paper is based upon the analysis of various kinds of sources – legislative, administrative and judicial. Its first aim is to assess the reception and evolution of the model of juvenile courts in a dictatorial context and in an adjacent area – i.e. Mediterranean Europe. The analysis of the mechanisms of the juvenile courts under Franco also sheds new lights upon the circulation of institutional models of dealing with dangerous youth / youth in danger. Indeed, as of the 1920’s, Spanish authorities debated the possibility of taking some inspiration from other Western countries’ reformatory system. But, from 1939 onward, the Francoist dictatorship was characterized by its isolation from the international circulation of educational, social and sanitary policies. Not until the 1960’s did the country begin to open to foreign models, this opening being mostly initiated by private associations. (Show less)

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven”. This quotation from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice was still used in the 1950’s as the motto of the Boston Juvenile Court. It tends to replace the traditional repressive function of the Law by an ideological function expressed by love and compassion.
The ideology of mercy and child’s interest, modernized and more or less de-Christianized, ensures the smooth running of juvenile courts; it is combined with a dose of violence varying, in quantity and modes, from one country to another. While comparative history has been supplemented, for several years, by studies on Europe and Canada, almost nothing exists on the relationship between France and the United States. Thanks to newly discovered court records, it is possible to address the history of this new kind of justice, “neo-humanist” (J. Chazal, 1952), which achieves worldwide success in the twentieth century.
Given the magnitude of the task, the focus will be on the comparison of two dynamic and pioneering courts, Boston and Paris, during the 1940’s and 1950’s. These different elements will be analyzed: the paradigms and legal frameworks; the targeted populations; judgment and, more or less gentle, rehabilitation practices, which involve sciences producing “power-knowledge” (M. Foucault, 1975) about the delinquents, indicative of new ways of thinking and controlling.
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