Doctoral Dissertation Research: Juvenile Delinquents and the Construction of a Puerto Rican Subject

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

Scholars of Latin America and the Caribbean have long considered the law and the rise of legal institutions as central to the process of modern nation making. Despite the careful attention paid to modern legal systems, scholars have overlooked an important aspect of it: the emergence of new legal systems and processes targeting children and youth. This facet of the system has been overlooked despite the fact that concerns about youth transgressions emerged at the end of the 19th century, a period of intense nation-making and state-building in Latin America. Research on juvenile justice systems and their institutions in the region is just beginning. This project studies how the youth became a target of new disciplinary measures. The project uses Puerto Rico as a case study to examine how and why concerns about children and youth transgressions emerged and evolved in contemporary Latin America. It analyzes the creation of state institutions to prosecute, contain, and reform delinquent youth in the context of nation formation. Using methods from cultural, social and legal history, this project investigates the following questions: 1) How was juvenile delinquency conceived and defined, and by whom? 2) What practices, policies and institutions were developed to deal with juvenile delinquents? 3) How did "juvenile delinquents" and children in general, experience these measures? This project is relevant for several reasons. First, it will reveal the extent to which the development of juvenile justice systems reflected and contributed to notions of nation and citizenship in Latin America. Second, it will place children and youth as essential subjects of study for understanding the process of nation making in the region. Finally, because this research will use the case of Puerto Rico as a case study, it will expand upon current understandings about colonial relations in contemporary times.