This article focuses on young people in Latin America. It discusses the societal paradoxes reflecting heavily on them today. An important paradox concerns on one hand, to the contemporary changes of the social meanings of being youth stands as a central reference of excellence to the entire society and, on the other, the limitation of objective and concrete reality which reduces the range of possibilities for realization in professional and social life. Associated with this, the development of a discursive process in today's society that reveals the will to punish the youth is also analyzed. This analysis is connected with two articulated processes: the transition from Welfare State to the Penal State; the overall policy of the society of control. The paradox of power and multiplicity - controls and resistances - are the consequence of these processes. Finally, the article emphasizes the positive social experimentations of certain groups of young people today.
youth and societal paradoxes; will to punish; society of control; resistance and social experimentations