Abstract
There is a consensus all over Europe and worldwide that depriving young offenders of their liberty should be avoided wherever possible. This idea has been confirmed repeatedly by international standards of the United Nations (see for example the so-called Beijing Rules of 1985) 1 and the Council of Europe (see for example the Recommendation (2003)20 on “New ways of dealing with juvenile delinquency and the role of juvenile justice”).
Juvenile justice systems therefore typically provide a variety of community sanctions that are less infringing on juveniles' rights and at the same time more educative and more promotional of social re-integration. 2 One appropriate way of dealing with less serious crime is to divert young offenders from juvenile courts and from possible stigmatisation or other negative effects of more serious justice interventions. This issue is covered in the chapter on diversion (see Dünkel in this volume) that highlights quite extensive diversionary practices (at least in some countries) which at the same time seem to be no less “re-integrative” than formal court proceedings, and which are in line with Rule No. 7 of Rec (2003)20 mentioned above. 3
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Notes
- 1.
Standard minimum rules for the administration of juvenile justice, see United Nations, http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/40/a40r033.htm. See in this respect particularly Rule 17.
- 2.
For the historical development see Jensen and Jepsen 2006: 452.
- 3.
Rule 7 states: “Expansion of the range of suitable alternatives to formal prosecution should continue. They should form part of a regular procedure, must respect the principle of proportionality, reflect the best interests of the juvenile and, in principle, apply only in cases where responsibility is freely accepted.” See also the chapter on Restorative Justice by O’Mahony and Doak in this volume.
- 4.
See, for example, Schumann et al. 1986.
- 5.
See The Record from April 25, 2007; in July 2008 the State watchdog commission recommended that California phase out its antiquated juvenile prisons (run by the Department of Corrections) by 2011, replacing them by regional county lockups; see http://thinkoutsidethecage2.blogspot.com/2008/07/closing-juvenile-prisons-in-california.html.
- 6.
See Gibbons and Blake 1976; Nejelski 1976; Austin and Krisberg 1981, 1982.
- 7.
See the AGIS project JLS/2006/AGIS/168. Methodology: Juvenile justice experts from 34 European countries were asked to write a national report about their juvenile justice system following an outline developed by Prof. Frieder Dünkel, Greifswald. The country reports will be published in 2009 (see Dünkel et al. 2009).
- 8.
Some countries do not provide for warnings or reprimands as a court decision, but still reprimands can be issued if the court or the public prosecutor decides to divert the case; see, for example, England/Wales, Germany or Lithuania, Table 11.1.
- 9.
Most countries rarely or almost never use this sanction for juvenile offenders. One exception is Finland; see below.
- 10.
Walsh in Dünkel et al. (2009) claims that imprisonment for juveniles in Ireland does not exist. Since March 2007, in Ireland a “child offender” (under 18 years of age) can not formally be sentenced to imprisonment. There is however an option for detention in a children’s detention school (formerly reformatory schools) or St. Patrick’s Institution which is likely to be comparable to youth imprisonment in other countries.
- 11.
For example in Ireland and Northern Ireland community service can only be imposed on juveniles aged 16 or older.
- 12.
Reported for example in the reports on the Czech Republic, Poland and Kosovo; see Dünkel et al. 2009.
- 13.
The difficulties are shown by the fact that the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics does not contain juvenile justice material (see Killias et al. 2003; Aebi et al. 2006) and even the SPACE project of the Council of Europe does not contain information about the sentencing practice in juvenile justice; see http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_affairs/Legal_co-operation/Prisons_and_alternatives/Statistics_SPACE_II/
- 14.
The measures and sanctions vary a lot in England and Wales in the different age groups. The measures and sanctions in the age group 15–17 are considered the most comparable to other juvenile justice systems in Europe.
- 15.
The referral order sends the young offender to a Youth Offender Panel that consists of two community members and one representative of the Youth Offending Team. The panel holds a meeting which may include the offender, the offender’s parents, a support for the offender and the victim and a victim supporter to discuss the crime and work on a solution. The panel (a) confronts the young offender with the impact of his crime in an attempt to prevent re-offending, (b) provides a forum for involved parties to discuss the circumstances leading up to the offence, (c) develops a plan of action (young offender contract) addressing reparation and the issues behind the offending behaviour; see http://www.restorativejustice.org/editions/2002/May2002/full_implementation_of_referral_ and O’Mahony and Doak in this volume.
- 16.
Compared to Germany, the proportion of 14% custodial sanctions in England implies a custody rate that is ten times higher; see Germany above.
- 17.
Fines cannot be issued against juveniles in Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Spain, Romania, Scotland and Serbia.
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Dünkel, F., Pruin, I. (2009). Community Sanctions and the Sanctioning Practice in Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe. In: Junger-Tas, J., Dünkel, F. (eds) Reforming Juvenile Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89295-5_11
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