NCJ Number
72426
Date Published
1979
Length
27 pages
Annotation
The structure, operation, and political organization of Les Eglantines, a residential institution for the social rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents, are described.
Abstract
The institution houses about 100 juveniles with marked recidivist tendencies in a middle-class district of Paris. Juveniles are required to follow certain basic rules, (i.e., not to fight or damage property and to get up at eight o'clock), but constraints are minimal. The facility provides comfortable housing, meals, and informal voluntary social activities. Neither work nor psychiatric treatment are required of the residents. The institution is run by a director, a part-time psychiatrist, and educators. Within the operational system of the institution, the director exercises absolute power, the juveniles exercise counterpower, and the educators are caught in between, forced to ensure conformity to rules but without any real authority. All activities are organized by the educators, and as residents are not required to participate in any activities, educators also have the task of motivating residents. Being at a disadvantage in relation to both the director and the juveniles, the educators are bitter, isolated, and impotent. Furthermore, they are financially exploited. Within this political system, the director assumes the role of an absolute sovereign who restrains youths minimally without encouraging them to adapt to any norms and who protects his empire from incursions of outside powers such as the police, judges, or the public. The youths accept the sovereign power, because it holds together the institution which permits them a degree of autonomy. The educators reject their situation completely but offer no active opposition because of their professional vulnerability, poor remuneration, and solitude. The juveniles tend to form their own microsociety, knowing how to use the stereotypes they encounter to protect their position. The institution is a success in some ways: the residents are not violent, they show respect for property, and they feel a degree of self-confidence. Unfortunately, this appears to be the result of being sheltered from reality, and of being placed in a comfortable social situation in which the educators, rather than the residents, are on the bottom. The discussion raises certain questions; e.g., whether the inversion of juvenile-educator positions does not accomplish a relationship long desired by the juveniles, and whether the political model of the institution does not mimic the power relationships of everyday situations. Several notes are supplied.