What does the involvement of Youth Protection and Juvenile Justice (Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse [PJJ]) mean for the education of the young people it oversees ? Drawing on qualitative research based in two open educational centres of the PJJ, 42 days of observation and 20 semi-directive interviews with professionals, along with the analysis of 380 situations with minors, this article shows that education and training are only taken into account when they raise problems. They require work that is particularly difficult for educators who are confronted with timeframes of education and training that are different from their own and from those of the justice system. These discordances and the working environments in these open education centres do nothing to reduce the distance that most of these young people already have with the school system.