Abstract

This research project aims to study the success of the experience of Social Utility Activities (aus) designed and implemented in the Italian juvenile justice system. The field in which the action of social work is studied is that of project paths in which juvenile offenders are protagonists with a symbolic intention of reparation for the damage they have caused: the so-called Social Utility Activities. The focus is placed on the exercise of social service, which stems from the response to juvenile delinquency (Presidential Decree 448/1988). The aus are studied as experiences with the territory where the facts that gave rise to the judicial proceedings occurred and with the communities that were affected by what happened, with the gaze of all the protagonists (professionals and experts by experience) in search of the reasons for the success, in the feeling of those who experienced it.