Sketches from a Juvenile Justice Centre

Drawing on more than a decade of ongoing work as an educator in a small juvenile justice centre (JJC) in northern Spain, the author offers a uniquely situated perspective on juvenile justice. Through personal reflection and scholarly insight, he examines broader questions of children’s and young people’s emancipation, connecting these concerns to his work as a children’s rights scholar.

Cordero Arce's book explores what it means to pursue emancipation in contexts shaped by overlapping forms of coercion, highlighting the central role of relationships in that pursuit. It provides a critical toolbox for practitioners, researchers, and others approaching juvenile justice and its educational claims with a reflective, questioning lens. Bringing together personal experience, professional practice, and academic analysis, it offers a rare and compelling contribution to debates on youth, rights, and justice.

Matías Cordero Arce is a Chilean independent researcher and a full-time educator, since 2014, at a Juvenile Justice Centre in the Basque Country (Spain). He holds an LLB from the Catholic University of Chile and practiced law for a few years in Chile before moving to the Basque Country, where he earned his M.A and Ph.D in Sociology of Law from the University of the Basque Country. He has presented, lectured, and published on issues related to children’s rights studies and childhood studies and is the author of Hacia un Discurso Emancipador de los Derechos de las Niñas y los Niños (Lima, Ifejant).