Models for managing child and adolescent delinquency with emphasis on the substantial and formal innovations of the “France’s penal code for minors”

In this article, on the one hand, we seek to examine to what extent the management of child and adolescent delinquency has been affected by dominant models, and on the other hand, to answer the question of why the field of children's rights is still subject to the most formal and substantial reforms.This research, which analyzed the development of children's criminal law with the descriptive-analytical method, came to the conclusion that the position of the child in the support model is that of a psychologically weak, legally incompetent and socially incompatible. But gradually and under the influence of international documents, a new image of the child arose, according to which the child became the subject of rights and became the holder of rights and became an activist, whereas before that he was a tool for the benefit of adults. Research findings show that these changes have completely or partially altered the criminal justice system for children and youth. In France, the only area which, after the rights of foreigners, has undergone the most changes, both criminally and substantively, is that of childhood. The legal decree of February 2, 1945 concerning delinquent children and adolescents, after numerous modifications, was replaced in 2021 by the repeal of the Code of Criminal Justice for Children and Adolescents, considered the new charter for delinquent children and adolescents. The evolution of models as well as the substantial and formal innovations of the new law constitute the subject of this article.