Implementing social policy through the criminal justice system: youth, prisons, and community-oriented policing in Nicaragua

Julienne Weegels

Oxford Development Studies, 2018, vol. 46, issue 1, 57-70

Abstract: Nicaragua has implemented a community-oriented policing model in addition to providing a prison system that is based on the premise of prisoners’ re-education. Though these are part of the criminal justice system, they are also presented as social policies with the objective of social (re)insertion of marginalised urban youth particularly. On the premise that detention is temporary and beneficial, these policies claim to prevent (youth) criminality and to reform its perpetrators. Yet they mostly push these youths into a spiral of continued state interventions. Through an analysis of youth-oriented public policy and an examination of the expansion of criminal justice services, complemented by ethnographic research material collected with young (former) prisoners, this article demonstrates how and why social policy for youth is being carried out by the criminal justice system. This development is underpinned by the securitisation of social policy and a political culture of social conservatism that renders marginalised youth unworthy of social protection.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13600818.2017.1391192 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:oxdevs:v:46:y:2018:i:1:p:57-70

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CODS20

DOI: 10.1080/13600818.2017.1391192

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Development Studies is currently edited by Jo Boyce and Frances Stewart

More articles in Oxford Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().