Abstract
Introducing the mixed-sex principle into prison: the venture seems unthinkable. Nevertheless, several of the six penal institutions for minors have taken the risk. Bringing boys and girls to experience their imprisonment together is part of a widened determination to normalize the adolescent prison population. However, the wish to arrive at a positive basis for the process of arrangement between the sexes fails to meet its objective, being faced with such strong resistance. On the contrary, certain areas such as sports practice have actually become a major scene of segregation of the sexes.