Reforms that resemble each other in uruguay's juvenile penal system

Abstract

The paper examines the performance of Uruguayan juvenile penal system through repeated modifi-cations to the existing institutional framework. This qualitative empirical and contextualized case study is based on a discourse analysis of interviews with legislative, judicial and executive agents from the juvenile justice system and documents included in a sample of judicial files. The results in-dicate that there is a justification of the use of confinement to organize adolescents' daily lives, as well as an identification of the consequences that imprisonment leaves on young people analyzed through professional practices in an open environment. The conclusions highlight the existing ten-sion between punishment and social protection approaches in divergent discourses regarding regu-latory measures for juvenile offenders.