Voices from inside the juvenile justice system and beyond. Pathways and life experiences of juveniles after youth justice intervention.

Throughout the 20^th century the Belgian juvenile justice system has been the subject of much criticism and debate. On the one hand, the ‘welfare system’ has been criticised because it lacks respect for children’s (due process) rights. On the other hand, the welfare model (which aims at ‘protecting’ children and youth) has also been criticised for its far-reaching interventions, often labelled as arbitrary, too severe, stigmatising, etc. National and international research increasingly stresses the iatrogenic effect of youth justice interventions. This effect appears to be twofold: the interventions not only impact on youngsters’ youth justice (and criminal justice) pathways as such, but as well on their further life experiences in a more broader sense. Youth justice interventions might engender negative effects even years after they have been imposed. In other words, these interventions might have side effects on the youngsters’ lives long after they attained majority. However, the voices of former children in the juvenile justice system are scarce. To understand the impact of the youth justice intervention

The problem formulation of this project consists of two main research questions:

1. What is the ‘impact’ of juvenile justice interventions on the lives of youngsters once they leave the justice system?
2. Has this effect been changing through time, and if yes, how?

To provide an answer to these research questions, it is essential to include the ‘voices’ of children with a youth justice history. For this purpose, in-depth interviews with former ‘children of the juvenile justice system’ will be conducted. Focus will be on how they experienced their contact(s) with the youth justice system. More specifically, we will explore if and how the intervention(s) impacted on their further life history. We are interested in the views and experiences of the former youth justice ‘clients’ themselves. In order to explore changes through time, we aim at finding around 40 respondents between 20 and 70 years old who are willing to share their ‘life story’ with the researcher.