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In a majority of Western countries, youth justice systems are faced with a variety of political pronouncements aimed at tougher criminal action against delinquent youth. Using a socio-historical perspective, this paper questions how these pronouncements are translated into government policy as produced by the administration of the Ministry of Justice which, in France, is responsible for the rehabilitation of youth offenders : the Youth Judicial Protection Service (Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse, PJJ). We will describe, in particular, the crystallization of a model of education under constraint, which has transformed the rehabilitative project of this administration, using a revitalized Republican utopia.