In Search of a European Model of Child Offender Treatment. Legal Aspects of the Travels of Folch i Torres (1926-1929)

Abstract

The need for child protection and the increase of the child delinquency was a fact from the ends of the XIXth century and the beginings of the XXth century and became a common subject of discussion and legislation at those time. For your resolution in different countries were created institutions and special courts for children. In this context, there was a gradual thinking’s change related to child delinquency and they began to appreciate the child's actions as a behavioral problem, thus becoming fundamental the psychological report and psychoeducational treatment of these child. In Spain, Lluis Folch was one of the men who worked more intensively in this framework. From the “Junta de Protección a la Infancia de Barcelona” he worked, especially, on the education, the evaluation and the rehabilitation of delinquent children, and also, Folch initiated the firsts psychological assessments for the Juvenile Court of Guardianship of Barcelona, founded in 1921. As part of its forensic, psychological and pedagogical concern, in 1926, began a series travels with Ybarra to several Europe’s countries to get information about the European forensic organization and work’s systems. These trravels are recorded in his diaries (some handwritten and others typed), where Folch pointed out the visit to various Europeans Institutions between 1926 and 1929. This article discusses these travels and its impact on tFolch.