Youth justice and the tensions between civil and social rights: similarities and differences between Brazil and United Kingdom

Abstract

This research proposal aims to develop a comparative study of the youth justice systems in Brazil and in England and Wales, focusing on the tensions these systems can produce on the access of young offenders to their civil and social rights. In these countries, the development of youth justice system occurred throughout the 20th century, together with the development of a concept of youth as a specific period of life that needed special protection. On the one hand, the separation and specialization of youth justice meant the focus on the promotion of social rights for young offenders. On the other hand, they may have created a tension between social rights and the civil rights commonly associated to the criminal justice system. This proposal seeks to comprehend this tensions by using a comparative approach, and it also tries to understand how the recent approximation between the youth justice systems and the criminal justice system can produce new tensions, related to the restriction of social rights that can occur without the counterpart of the strengthen of civil rights for young offenders.