Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the social workers’ experiences with the social pedagogical work in a secured institution for young offenders sentenced a youth sanction. The basis in this connection is four social workers, who are all employed at the secured institution Kompasset in North Jutland and their work with the young offenders in the first phase of the youth sanction.

The youth sanction has been criticized for being a combination of sanction and treatment, and existing investigations have presented a number of issues with this combination. In this connection it seems interesting to start with the persons, who perform the social pedagogical work and how they experience working in this tense environment. Given that the aim is to investigate the social workers’ experiences working in this tense environment, it is also interesting to investigate how they experience to which extent the punishing elements influence the social pedagogical work.
The first part of the analysis will thereby present the experiences and descriptions of the social workers, which have been investigated based on semi-structured research interviews. In the descriptions it is expressed, that the social workers experience this double role in their work, being part of a punishment, but also that it helps them further in their social pedagogical work. They also emphasize in their description a number of positive elements in the framework, among others the imprisonment and the strict framework.
In order to analyze the experiences of the social workers, Erving Goffman’s theory on total institutions is applied as well the Howard S. Becker’s theory on condemnation and Alex Honneth’s theory on recognition. Goffman is used for an analysis of whether the institution Kompasset can be regarded as a total institution and whether the description of the social workers may be related to the framework of a total institution. Becker is applied to describe how the youth sanction in itself can be condemning, but at the same time it is also applied to create an understanding of the social workers’ experiences and intentions with regards to the social pedagogical work. It is also described how the social workers’ experience, that the youth sanction and the social pedagogical work do not aim at condemning the young offenders as deviants. In this connection Honneth is applied for an understanding of the social workers’ approach to the young offenders, and the social workers’ experience of the social pedagogical work is analyzed, as well as how they describe, that they aim at creating an appreciative approach to the young offenders.

Based on a qualitative analysis this thesis aims at creating an understanding of the social workers’ experience of the youth sanction and the social pedagogical work in a secured institution