Policy impact of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child on street youth and juvenile delinquency in Chile

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and discuss the impact that Chile’s signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990 had on the country’s policies involving social services for children and adolescents, and for those who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Despite these progressive policy changes, youth continue to experience a number of problems. In this chapter, we focus on two of these problems by describing the extent to which youth homelessness and juvenile delinquency impact Chilean youth and the larger society.