Although human migration is hardly a new phenomenon, its nature and extent have changed significantly in the postindustrial era (Aas & Bosworth, 2013; Maly, Blommaert, & Ben Yakoub, 2014). Alongside the âtraditionalâ migration movements (such as labour migrations, migrations from former colonies, etc.), so-called ânew migrationsâ became prominent (Koser & Lutz, 1998). These migrations are dense, highly diverse and entail diffuse motives and paths. Furthermore, the situation of many people in the country of immigration is precarious and turbulent. Among other issues, many of these ânewâ groups cannot count on the presence of a profound social network, and numerous institutional contexts are structurally unadjusted to the needs of these newly arrived immigrants (Martiniello, Rea, Timmerman, & Wets, 2010; Portes, 2010). Transnational migration (aside from the âmobility â of highly educated professionals, migration for educational purposes, etc.) has been problematised in various instances. This framing has equally been subject to shifts throughout the past decades. To date, particularly asylum applicants, illegalised immigrants, people presumably migrating for economic reasons and Roma are positioned high on the political agenda. Additionally, claims of failed socioeconomic and cultural integration and the ânaiveâ ideal of multiculturalism are quite prominent (Maly et al., 2014). The ways in which these groups are framed and handled in institutional contexts that are, in principle, unrelated to migration and integration as such, remains an underexplored area.
This research speaks to debates about interactions and expectations in institutional contexts and commonsensical discriminatory or otherwise harmful practices therein. At the heart of this contribution are the understandings and interpretations of complex situations, through institutional discourse production and use. Specifically, this study is focused on how deviant behaviour and broader background situations of migrant youth are problematised in the practice of youth justice, and how such discourses are enacted.
Quite differently from adult criminal justice (cf. the work on crimmigration (e.g. Aas & Bosworth, 2013; JoĂŁo Guia, van der Woude, & van der Leun, 2013), this institutional sphere is not directly related to migration; yet, in practice, migration background, culture, ethnicity and class are influential for how deviant behaviour, personality and milieu of the young people are understood. The analytic gaze of this book is turned on the definitional processes, problematising activities, expectations, circularity of information and modes of communication in the practice of youth justice in Belgium while handling migrant youth.
Youth justice is a fascinating context for such a study, for it is characterised by a large discretionary space, the âbest interestsâ doctrine and constant negotiations between protecting, responsibilising and sanctioning. All of this makes this practice social (i.e. driven by human understandings), rather than a mere mechanical application of laws. Despite the introduction of some retributive elements and principles of accountability, the Belgian youth-justice model retains its emphasis on the youth-centred protection ideal (see Chapters 2 and 8 for discussion of the international context).
This research addresses how understandings of behaviour and the broader situation of young people are linked to migration (in a broad sense), how certain elements of migration and cultural background come to constitute youth-justice profiles, how these problematisations âtravelâ throughout various stages of youth-justice processing and across institutional spheres, which aspects play a role in the constitution of a case file and, ultimately, judicial reaction.
One of the central propositions is that the judicial (and by extension, societal) reaction cannot be seen separately from oneâs social position(ing). The central question of the current study is how this occurs in the field of youth justice. The focus is directed at the social conditions of (re)production of youthâs profiles and backgrounds in their youth-justice trajectories: the reconstruction, translation and formalisation of the events and the situation into case-file documents and into professionalsâ understandings. In other words, the decision outcomes are not abstracted from their production and not focused on as a separate entity (cf. disparity research discussed in Chapter 2). Rather, I am interested in how youth-justice professionals understand and constitute people, events and the desirable âsolutionsâ.
Of particular interest is how the aspects of migration, culture and ethnicity become relevant and come to play a role in youth-justice problematisations and assessments (i.e. how such positioning is constituted, assigned meaning and negotiated, and what this means for youth-justice practice). To this end, I focus on the origins, shapes and roles of problem definitions while handling a case, which result in often inconspicuous shifts in attributions of causes of crime, assumptions about the agency of the youngster, about the âappropriateâ attitude and background context; eventually contributing to shifts in the goals of the (preferred) interventions.
Specific groups were chosen as instances of ânewâ migrants: on the one hand, youngsters born in the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya, mainly) , and on the other hand, young people born in Slovakia and the Czech Republic residing in Belgium. The former case concerns asylum seekers and refugees who mostly came to Western Europe at the beginning of the 2000s in the aftermath of the Chechen wars. The latter case deals with intra-European migrants (mostly moving to Belgium after the EU-enlargement in 2008) who largely consist of Roma minorities and who became popularly known as economic migrants. Both groups of people are positioned in particular ways outside the âwallsâ of youth-justice institutions, at times with references to distinctive crime patterns and specifically causing concerns about youth crime (Delforge, 2008; Farcy, 2006; Siegel, 2013). Next to representations, the choice of the cases was pragmatic: given the limited digitalisation and non-registration of ethnicity in Belgian youth justice, the cases had to be selected based on birthplace. Moreover, the selection was personal. Having lived in the former Soviet Union and in the Czech Republic myself, I was confronted with very profound exclusionary practices and stereotyping to which the respective groups of people are subject in the countries of origin (see also Chapter 2).
The minors I focused upon in my research were formally suspected of having committed an offence. After having previously studied experiences of migrant young people with police and criminal-justice institutions (Petintseva, 2009), I now chose to zoom in on the institutional side (see also Duchateau, Van Poeck, & Hebberecht, 2004; Foblets, Djait, & Pieters, 2005). This resulted in the current focus on the positioning of Caucasians and Roma Slovak and Czech youngsters in the daily practice of youth-justice institutions.
From the very beginning, it was clear that possible discriminatory practices were a sensitive and rather subtle matter (see also Terrio, 2008, 2009). Hence, my goal was to understand the everyday interactions and practices, focusing on how these young people are defined, assessed and processed. Therefore, I discuss how they are discursively positioned in the practice of youth justice, paying attention to the notions of migration, culture and ethnicity. I outline how these narratives function in specific interactions, I discuss the situatedness of such positioning, how it is maintained or renegotiated, alongside the impact it has on the judicial trajectory. In other words, the goal is to reconstruct how ânewâ groups of youth, their actions and the broader situation are being defined and problematised throughout their youth-justice trajectories, and to find out which actors contribute to these (de)constructions and from what knowledge and discourse they draw their views.
This is accomplished by examining the assumptions underlying discourses constituted throughout youth-justice trajectories. Central markers, negotiations, discursive conflicts, concept recycling, contradictions, discursive strategies and the linguistic resources mobilised reveal how problematisations (as âtruthâ) are being shaped (Foucault, 1969).
The central question addressed here is: When assessing and judging young people who are formally suspected of having committed an offence (i.e. referred to the youth court in delinquency cases), what issues are problematised throughout youth-justice trajectories? Specifically, what representations can be found of the causes and nature of the offences? Of youthâs personalities and responsibility? Of their home backgrounds and school situations?
For each of the themes, I was interested in the expression of the discourses elicited. For instance, to what extent they are âculturalised,â âethnicisedâ or âmigrationisedâ and with which underlying assumptions/connotations? To what kind of groups are the young people assigned? Which potentially important elements are left unproblematised? How is positioning legitimised (e.g. differences, practical constraints, suitability, best interests, etc.)? Also the constitution of problematisations was of interest: Who produces such discourses? How are various voices represented? How is this knowledge maintained and disseminated? Are there alternative reports, counter-stories and negotiations? On what kind of inferences is this discourse based (specific examples, expertise or convictions)?
Furthermore, the operationalisation of these discourses within the judicial field (Fairclough, 2010), and hence their discursive and non-discursive effects, are highlighted. In that sense, I attempt to assess the impact of problematisations on further definition, assessment and decision processes. This is undertaken by looking at what becomes central in the institutional discourses, what gets lost, whether the discourse follows a straight line (e.g. certain problem representations remain fairly stable and result in an intervention expected in the line of the problematisation) or whether there are disruptions. Based on accounts of youth-justice professionals, I also discuss what these problematisations mean for their practice (e.g. this could mean desirable or actual decision making but also the justification or requirement of some specialised approach to migrant youth).
Aside from the particular contexts and cases studied, this research speaks to broader debates concerning: (1) the issues of discriminatory ethnicisation, culturalisation and âmigrationisationâ, where I specifically bring in the concept of âdiscursive harmâ ; and (2) the definition of âbest interestsâ in the mixed protection-based youth-justice models, which increasingly come under pressure and become replaced by rights approaches.
With regard to practice, the book offers an exploration of the ways in which expectations are projected and perpetuated. It is not my ambition to offer a ready-to-use solution on how to approach migrant...