Exploring the findings of a study undertaken in a unit of the CASA Foundation (SP), this article analyzes the ways in which confinement as a form of punishment affects adolescents. The young offenders' unit was analyzed via the concept of the total institution, which allows us to think of the ways in which the institution, by generating conceptions of its members through the definition of their situation, affects the way in which they interact. Based on the anticipation of an imminent danger, the security procedures and prison-like characteristics of the physical installations also make this sense of impeding danger evident to all those who frequent the unit, provoking tensions and imposing the need for control and rules of conduct.
Punishment; Young offenders' unit; Total institution; Socioeducational measures; Statute of the Child and Adolescent