BETWEEN JUSTICE AND PSYCHIATRY: A DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL APPROACH OF JUVENILE VIOLENCE

Abstract

Starting from the observation that medico legal perspective is rarely used to question juvenile delinquency, this
paper consider a specific subgroup among these adolescents: those whose main characteristic is to make themselves difficult to the various teams involved in their
care and education whatever are their competency and
their status. The psychopathological perspective that has
been adopted in this paper brings some light to understand these characteristics and their underlying psychological functioning. It shows that bellow the same trespassing and violent acting one can observe two radically opposed psychological motivations: while Provocative
Violence aims to increase the presence of the other
through an “authority conflict”, Destructive Violence
aims conversely at the disappearance or disqualification
of all others in an attempt to protect these adolescents’
identity from the threat they attribute to otherness. The
paper concludes advocating the development of institutional models to challenge these differences through a
conceptual model different from the legal paradigm
generally recommended to improve these adolescents’
behaviors.