In October 2005, three weeks of rioting erupted in France following the accidental deaths of two French boys of North African ancestry. Killed while fleeing the police, these boys were deemed dangerous based largely on their immigrant origins. In France, disadvantaged children of immigrant and foreign ancestry represent the vast majority of formal suspects and have increasingly been portrayed as a threat to public safety and as the embodiment of the assault on French values. Despite official rhetoric of protection, Judging Mohammed reveals how the treatment of these children in the juvenile courts system undermines legal guarantees of equality and due process and reinforces existing hierarchies. Based on five years of extensive research in the largest and most influential juvenile court in France, this work follows young people inside the system, from arrest to court trials. Revealing an alarming turn toward accountability, restitution, and retribution, this groundbreaking study uncovers the disquieting reasons behind France's shifting approaches to the identification, treatment, and representation of its delinquent youth.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Note on Transliteration and Usage -- Preface -- Translator's Introduction -- The Criterion for Distinguishing Legal Opinions from Judicial Rulings and the Administrative Acts of Judges and Rulers -- Introduction -- Question 1 -- Question 2 -- Question 3 -- Question 4 -- Question 5 -- Question 6 -- Question 7 -- Question 8 -- Question 9 -- Question 10 -- Question 11 -- Question 12 -- Question 13 -- Question 14 -- Question 15 -- Question 16 -- Question 17 -- Question 18 -- Question 19 -- Question 20 -- Question 21 -- Question 22 -- Question 23 -- Question 24 -- Question 25 -- Question 26 -- Question 27 -- Question 28 -- Question 29 -- Question 30 -- Question 31 -- Question 32 -- Question 33 -- Question 34 -- Question 35 -- Question 36 -- Question 37 -- Question 38 -- Question 39 -- Question 40 -- Notes -- Glossary of Names -- Glossary of Terms -- A -- B -- D -- F -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- W -- Z -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W

All institutions concerned with the process of judging - whether it be deciding between alternative courses of action, determining a judge’s professional integrity, assigning culpability for an alleged crime, or ruling on the credibility of an asylum claimant - are necessarily directly concerned with the question of doubt. By putting ritual and judicial settings into comparative perspective, in contexts as diverse as Indian and Taiwanese divination and international cricket, as well as legal processes in France, the UK, India, Denmark, and Ghana, this book offers a comprehensive and novel perspective on techniques for casting and dispelling doubt, and the roles they play in achieving verdicts or decisions that appear both valid and just. Broadening the theoretical understandings of the social role of doubt, both in social science and in law, the authors present these understandings in ways that not only contribute to academic knowledge but are also useful to professionals and other participants engaged in the process of judging. This collection will consequently be of great interest to academics researching in the fields of legal anthropology, ritual studies, legal sociology, criminology, and socio-legal studies.

This book examines the implications of the professional and judicial discourses on migrant youth in the Belgian youth justice system. Drawing on a detailed study of 55 court case files and in-depth interviews with over forty youth justice professionals, the book explores the problematisations of migrant Roma and Caucasian young people in the youth justice system to argue that they result in ‘discursive harms’. It discusses the assumptions and the effects of explanations of deviant behaviour, ambiguities in representations of young people’s agency and responsibility, differing assumptions about the moral potential of Roma and Caucasian families, and the reframing of assessments in school-based reports as signals of delinquency. The book reflects on how to address the ‘discursive harms’ identified and calls for a review of protection practices and ideals from a fundamental rights perspective. This book contributes to a topic that will have increasing significance for youth justice practice in Belgium as well as the rest of Europe.

Ethnographies of children and youth who migrate and are affected by the migration of others

The prison is a recent invention, hardly more than two centuries old, yet it has become the universal system of punishment. How can we understand the place that the correctional system occupies in contemporary societies? What are the experiences of those who are incarcerated as well as those who work there? To answer these questions, Didier Fassin conducted a four-year-long study in a French short-stay prison, following inmates from their trial to their release. He shows how the widespread use of imprisonment has reinforced social and racial inequalities and how advances in civil rights clash with the rationales and practices used to maintain security and order. He also analyzes the concerns and compromises of the correctional staff, the hardships and resistance of the inmates, and the ways in which life on the inside intersects with life on the outside. In the end, the carceral condition appears to be irreducible to other forms of penalty both because of the chain of privations it entails and because of the experience of meaninglessness it comprises. Examined through ethnographic lenses, prison worlds are thus both a reflection of society and its mirror. At a time when many countries have begun to realize the impasse of mass incarceration and question the consequences of the punitive turn, this book will provide empirical and theoretical tools to reflect on the meaning of punishment in contemporary societies.