Abstract

This article, in the form of an essay, analyses the construction of identity in young law-breakers based on the results of a series of investigations carried out with urban children and young people living in poverty in the southern regions of Chile. This research, developed over more than two decades, first qualitatively and then quantitatively, allows identifying particularities in the process of identity construction, which make it possible to propose a criminal identity formed during a long-standing process in children and adolescents who live through the experience of social maladjustment, showing different persistent trajectories over time. In adolescents who construct an identity that validates delinquency as a way of life, although risk factors are identified at various levels, similar to those highlighted in the literature, in the reality studied there are important contextual conditions (family dynamics, neighbourhood conditions, school experiences and intervention programmes, etc.) that play a relevant role in validating and reinforcing this identity.