The happy, miserable and repentant self of Gustave J. : Belgian juvenile offenders and narratives of escape, 1890-1950

Archives of reform schools for juvenile offenders contain a myriad of autobiographical documents written by young people. This paper focuses on reform schools for boys in Belgium between 1890 and 1950. Drawing on case files of boys who escaped from the institute, this paper discusses the dynamics between police interrogations and the boys’ own narratives of escape. Therein, this paper discusses notions of authorship, institutional censorship, emotions and selfhood, and their changes throughout the first half of the 20th century.