Compassion and Empathy: Emotionalization in the Uruguayan Juvenile Penal System

Abstract

In this article we address the moral dimension of the State to analyze "psy" practices in the Uruguayan Juvenile Justice System. We analyze the adolescent responsibility processes through two central analytical categories that construct the emotionalization of society. We used data constructed in a case study with an ethnographic approach developed in centers that implement custodial measures (2016-2020). We conducted thematic content analysis of 8 mobile records where technical teams documented their expert knowledge about adolescents, as well as their intervention objectives. The results show how responsibilization occurs as a temporal process, in which compassion circulates to explain delinquency in terms of family blame and trauma, and empathy is proposed as a sentiment that should emerge as a sign of adequate and auspicious intervention for a future and a desistance process. The analysis of emotions is a fundamental dimension for understanding the forms of governance and punishment that operate in the Uruguayan Juvenile Justice System. The main limitation of the study lies in the difficulties in accessing information and researching in confinement spaces and in the specificity of the material used for analysis, the mobile record.