Community Service: A Second Chance for Juvenile Offenders to Learn and Grow

The two teenage girls welcome customers, go behind the cash desk, do a bit of cleaning. They sort the clothes, put them on the shelves. They work in a solidarity shop opened in Woippy, avenue de Thionville, by the association Action vers l’espoir. They are about to end.

Jenna* worked there for 35 hours. Shaineze* stayed 105 hours. The court has set these times. Childhood friends weren’t paid. They have fulfilled the sentence imposed on them last year. The Metz juvenile court sentenced them to community service, accompanied by educational measures.

Jenna, 18, and Shaineze, 17, were convicted of extortion and gang assault. Hands clenched, shy smiles, hair up, the girls don’t dwell on the facts. Nothing forces them to talk about it. But the condemnation marked them. “The judge gave us the choice between a two-month prison sentence and community service, it was quickly seen,” breathes Jenna.

The work in the store confronted them with another reality. “Here, you see a lot of people in need,” continues Jenna. “They don’t all have the same origins, the same beliefs, but that doesn’t prevent them from helping each other. Shaineze nods. “People are not all bad. If you respect them, they respect you. »

“Value, Empower”

The experience lived in the solidarity shop has made them evolve. The confidence of their tutor, president of the association, carried them. Jared Zola likes the exchange, the discussion. Especially since he has the words. “The primary objective of this welcome is to promote them, to empower them,” he underlines.

The posture, the tone, the social approach, everything counts, everything has to be worked on. “I was a neighborhood kid myself. I saw friends take sentences, be imprisoned. Jared, a professional educator, believes in the power of this second chance that he is now able to give. “You have to be in the pedagogy not always in the repressive. Youth is the future,” he smiles.

It is authorized by the Ministry of Justice to receive Tigistes , adults and minors, within his association since 2020. “You have to play on their skills,” he explains. “If the person does not want to be in the shop, they can take care of the maintenance of the exteriors”, he illustrates.

Jared’s association was created in 2017 in Metz Nord, in support of the Bliiida camp at the time, and to help a friend who works with children in Madagascar. Fundraising has flourished. Action vers l’espoir now occupies premises in Woippy, everything is sold for one euro in the shop and other services complete the solidarity approach. Jenna and Shaineze were touched by what they found there.

The two out-of-school teenagers want to bounce back, enroll in a temp agency before starting training at the start of the school year. Jenna imagines herself in a nursing school. Shaineze targets early childhood. At 18, this is not her first conviction by the juvenile court. “I will never do it again,” she says, looking determined.

*Names have been changed.