Judging Mohammed: Juvenile Delinquency, Immigration, and Exclusion at the Paris Palace of Justice

In October 2005, three weeks of rioting erupted in France following the accidental deaths of two French boys of North African ancestry. Killed while fleeing the police, these boys were deemed dangerous based largely on their immigrant origins. In France, disadvantaged children of immigrant and foreign ancestry represent the vast majority of formal suspects and have increasingly been portrayed as a threat to public safety and as the embodiment of the assault on French values.

Despite officia...