ABSTRACT
In order to assist young offenders, the professionals working with them need to understand their situations and to identify the ‘problem.’ Given that the professionals in question do not have immediate access to information about the youths’ trajectories and personal situations, they spend considerable time investigating each case. This third chapter shows how they use the information they gather (from judicial case files, statements by the youths, and so on) along with various theoretical tools (such as psychoanalytical concepts) to build new narratives – or ‘frames,’ to use Goffman’s term. During this process, the professionals assess and compare competing interpretations in order to frame the youths’ situations in new ways. Finally, the frames go through an institutional validation process before then becoming operational.
My analysis identifies four frames commonly used by these professionals to make sense of the youths’ trajectories and especially of the offences that they have committed: crime as a way of life (1), the offence as a symptom (2), the offence as an ‘accident’ (3), and finally the non-existent offence (4). Each frame defines what kind of information is relevant, provides an explanation for the cause of the offence, and suggests the direction the professionals should take in their work with the young offenders.
