The article discusses the current importance of the issue of deviant behavior in adolescents in connection with the general social crisis, explains the mental state and characteristics of children in closed institutions through psychological concepts and the features of their mental state after entering the institution. Pupils in a closed institution, at each age, are characterized by specific and different sets of psychological traits that distinguish them from their peers growing up in the family. Infliction of harm by an offender is associated with an attack on a person, his rights and freedoms, property, rights of legal entities, other public and state interests, the legal order established by the state. They are formalized in the norms of law by defining them as violations of various types of liability established by law, are prosecuted under the established law. In order to organize the work on re-socialization of juveniles serving a sentence of imprisonment, it is necessary to take into account, first of all, their psychological characteristics, depending on their age.