Abstract/Summary

This article draws on research about young people's responses to being governed in secure residential facilities. It focuses on young people's expressions of agency as they ‘do programme’ in these facilities. It points to the ways that young people's language of choice and responsibility reflects their performances of ‘programme’ as they manage complicated emotions about change and growth. It is argued that there are various ‘splits’ that exist between official notions of programme compliance and those embodied and understood by young people. The article illuminates some of the more invisible pains experienced by young people in custody by revealing the intractability of the discourses of self-control in these young people's lives.