Los juicios orales a personas menores de edad

this article looks into the ways in which criminal justice is currently deployed and exercised over teenagers and youth responsible or presumed responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the city of buenos aires. by focusing on practices, it is possible to begin to understand and analyze the "meaningful actions" developed by the various agents that construct and reproduce judicial agency. from this perspective, oral trials involving teenagers and youths accused of having committed a crime, which were followed during fieldwork at the juvenile oral courts in the city of buenos aires, are described and analyzed. such oral trials are considered as privileged moments of interaction for the analysis of practices and statements of the different agents -judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and public defenders for minors- who daily construct this form of justice. in doing so, besides describing in detail the procedures which formally regulate these trials, oral hearings are analyzed as juridical rituals in order to investigate the social and power relations which are staged. at the same time, through an examination of judicial files, the arguments used by judges in supporting second judicial sentences are reflected upon.