El tribunal tutelar de Sevilla, una alternativa para los menores delincuentes a principios del siglo XX

Abstract

The study of delinquent child care and all institutions responsible for their education and care is a subject barely analyzed in Andalusia and specifically Seville. Until the introduction of the courts for children in Spain, the treatment of child offenders took the path of the hospice or adult prison. There were very few centers where they could live and be educated. Until the time between the two last centuries there was no real concern about the issue. In Spain, the child protection as a public issue, organized and regulated by the state, appears in the early 20th Century. It arises in the context of a social reform movement from 1900, driven strongly from the Government by way of social legislation. This would transform the bourgeois-liberal state in a social state of law. There was a growing awareness on the issue being reflected in conferences, publications of books and articles. The concern resulted in the Courts Act of 1918 for Juvenile courts with special jurisdiction which prevented their imprisonment. Auxiliary institutions were necessary: the houses of observation and the guardianship or reformatories. The delay in the expansion was due to lack of budget to create the entire infrastructure in each province. In Seville there was a strong movement for its establishment through the press in line with what was happening nationwide. And despite of the political interest of judicial, educational and municipal institutions, they were not implemented until 1930. The press was the boost that the city needed to encourage its creation.