Towards a Genealogy of Young People in Conflict with the Law in the Chilean Social Sciences, 1980–2010

This article explores Chilean social science discourses on youth in conflict with the law between 1980 and 2010. Through a scoping review of academic and scientific writings and articles in the social sciences about young people in conflict with the law, the manuscript describes three figures or semantic configurations referring to young people in conflict with the law: (i) anomic youth, (ii) psychosocially harmed youth and (iii) young people at criminal risk. The analysis of these three configurations highlights a shift from a pathological and deficit-based consideration of youth in conflict with the law towards a perspective that seeks to anticipate juvenile crime as a possible future. This forward-looking orientation corresponds to the scarcity of sociological output on youth issues and, in turn, to the rise of psycho-neuro disciplines and technologies as expert discourses on the subject.