January 2001 witnessed a crucial change in the Portuguese juvenile justice system: for the first time the law introduced a clear-cut separation between minors at risk and delinquent youths. The former are now under the protection of the Social Security, while the latter are under the tutelage of the Ministry of Justice. This law applies to youngsters who between the ages of 12 and 16 commit an act that the adult penal law qualifies as a crime. Detention in a Custodial and Training Centre (Centro Educativo, in Portuguese) is the most severe of the measures that can be applied to youth offenders. This paper is elaborated from the standpoint of an ethnographer that conducted research on a Custodial and Training Centre for juvenile delinquents. Also, in the later stages of the research, I sometimes assumed the role of mediator in conflicts between youths and staff. The paper discusses the potential of conflict mediation as an effective and empowering strategy for dealing with the recurring tendency towards conflict in this kind of institutions. It argues that conflict mediation, while not being a universal remedy, is often a better option than the usual approach of total institutions to conflict (Goffman, 1970). To be precise, it argues that a constructive approach to conflict is particularly needed when dealing with youths in this kind of educational settings, and therefore that conflict mediation is usually a better option than simple conflict containment aimed exclusively at the preservation of order and the minimization of risks. Conflict containment is carried out by keeping even minor activities and interactions under constant scrutiny, and also by using rules as disorder prevention instruments rather than as organizing principles of sociability. My initial goal in this research was to identify the educational model at work in the Centre. I expected that, according to what the law prescribes, there would be a strong emphasis on law-related education. Law-related education and the youngsters’ reintegration in society are in fact the main objectives defined by the legal framework which applies to delinquent youths (Lei Tutelar Educativa, in Portuguese). However, during my stay at the Centre I was unable to find any well-defined, clear-cut model of education applied in a systematic way. In the absence of a model, and considering that law-related education is one of the main goals in the Lei Tutelar Educativa, I suggest that conflict mediation could provide the basis for such a model. Indeed, conflict mediation is a strategy to be promoted not only in the field of restorative justice strictu sensu, namely in victim-offender relationships, but also as an educational and transformative strategy. Furthermore, I argue that an institution that teaches conflict mediation will certainly learn new ways of organizing itself.

Ethnographic research conducted over a 10 months period in a Detention and Training Centre (“Centro Educativo”) for juvenile delinquents in Porto, Portugal. Fieldnotes were the main mechanism for registering data.

This paper hopes to make clear the relevance of developing negotiation and conflict mediation programmes in institutions and contexts dealing with delinquent and problematic youths by stressing the relevance of conflict mediation as a potentially empowering process which contributes to individuals’ greater autonomy and responsibility.