Juvenile Criminal Justice: an approach from undergraduate and graduate theses in Costa Rica's public academia

Abstract

The Juvenile Criminal Justice Act (7576) represents a transformation of the paradigm in the Costa Rican Judicial System regarding the management and implementation of justice for young people in the country, as the product of a series of cultural, social and political factors that modified the way in which young people were criminally approached. Therefore, there is a need to identify the thematic areas and interdisciplinarity through which Costa Rican public academia has approached Juvenile Criminal Justice in recent years. To this end, the article aims to compile academic efforts materialized in Final Graduation Papers, understanding these as the result of the formative process offered by the public universities in Costa Rica (Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional and Universidad Estatal a Distancia) to demonstrate the academic journey, the breaking of paradigms, and the integration of new areas of study that allow visualizing Juvenile Criminal Justice and the Penitentiary System from different angles as well as to serve as a sort of guideline for future researchers who wish to delve into the juvenile criminal branch.