Migrant teenagers in conflict with the law: towards a conceptual transition
Migrant teenagers in conflict with the law: towards a conceptual transition

Summary/Abstract: The following paper develops the concept of “Migrant teenager in conflict with the law” from three dimensions: Social, Biological and legal within the MexicanAmerican border context. At the same time it analyzes a conceptual transition: from transit migrant teenagers to circuit migrant teenagers. This is analyzed to serve as an example of how the actors get a higher degree of vulnerability that makes them take decisions that endanger their physical integrity and their liberty. One of the main points in this paper is that teenagers are easily susceptible of being “recruited” by criminals to commit antisocial activities that could led them to jail. This forced recruitment happens due to the fact that migrant teenagers have accumulated several conditions of vulnerability especially during the conceptual transition they suffer in international frontier. Three research threads are established: legislation concerning migrant teenagers; broken migratory process and the transition from transit migrant teenagers to circuit migrant teenagers in through three dimensions; legal, social and biological. This is an effort to bring light to one of the most vulnerable actors in the migrant process: migrant teenagers. This paper takes as an empiric reference the Mexicali Treatment Center for Teenagers, in Baja California Mexico because this actors have several vulnerabilities accumulated and are involved in crimes and are being held incarcerated. The results of this research show that integral attention is limited by the homologation of all the migrants regardless of age, and other characteristics of the actors. This paper suggests make visible the different situations of vulnerability to create integral attention strategies for migrant teenagers.

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