Juvenile Justice: Retributive or Restorative?
November 9th, 2007 Shobe_ceo
Juvenile justice is an issue that affects not only children involved in criminal activities but also child victims of poverty, abuse and exploitation. Throughout the world, children who come into conflict with the law are at the greatest risk of having their fundamental rights violated. For this reason, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) established the following as the core guiding principle for the treatment of children in conflict with the law:
State Parties recognize the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth, which reinforces the child’s respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others and which takes into account the child’s age and the desirability of promoting the child’s reintegration and the child’s assuming a constructive role in society.â€? 1
States are therefore required to establish laws, procedures, authorities and institutions specifically applicable to children alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law. It is a legally binding instrument.
It is with this consideration that we seek to present relevant information on the trend of juvenile justice system in various countries, in relation to meeting these obligations. We will assess whether restorative or retributive forms of juvenile justice systems are being implemented in countries around the world. To this end, we will look into national juvenile justice systems, laws and practices based on the CRC and the UN guidelines on juvenile justice; the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (JDLs), the UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (Riyadh Guidelines); and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules). We approached this by looking at the state of juvenile justice in the various regions and individual nations of the world.
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1 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available online at www.unicef.org.crc. Last Accessed October 23, 2007.
Entry Filed under: Atenista, Breakthroughs, For the Mind, Life of Law, Shobe_CEO
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