Children as victims and as perpetrators: From symbolic incongruence to ineffective practice

Abstract

Social representations about children and their problems are cognitive instruments that can be used as interpretative resources of children’s social place, of the role and expectations assigned to them, their prescribed paths, and how social policies and legal systems carry out the symbolic and material regulation of their lives. As victimisation and offending are core topics within the field of Psychology of Justice, social representations of victims and offenders constitute relevant issues to be discussed. This is the case with child victims and child offenders. Beginning with the assumption that the child protection domain gives us a privileged perspective on childhood in contemporary societies, this paper addresses distinctive features of current symbolic configurations of child victims and child offenders, taking into consideration their consistencies, contradictions and implications.