Holding Delinquent Juveniles Accountable Through Peri-Judicial Practices, Mediation, and Family Group Conferences

An important objective of the criminal justice system with respect to delinquent juveniles, in addition to correction and re-socialization, is making them accountable. Juvenile accountability as reflected in this study through specific principles rooting in theories of criminology and philosophical and penological bases, depends on development and application of alternative practices that are different from those traditionally used by the criminal justice system in responding to a criminal phenomenon. Therefore, to hold delinquent juveniles accountable one needs to turn to responses that can desirably make an offender aware of unfavorable consequences of his criminal acts and motivate him to redress damages that have resulted from those acts. The present paper is an attempt to discuss two effective ways of treating delinquent juveniles, namely mediation in criminal processes and family group conferences, to help them take responsibility for their criminal acts and try to make up for the consequences of those acts. The goal is to identify methods of holding delinquent juveniles accountable in the Iranian criminal justice system that have emerged as a result of ineffectiveness of punishments in correction and re-socialization of delinquent children and in the light of new ways proposed by restorative justice for treating this group of offenders. These practices have been influenced by criminological approaches including reintegration shaming, the principle of criminal law as the last and least resort, right to not to be punished, etc. Drawing on descriptive-analytical findings and desk research, the present study has found that delinquent juveniles can be hold accountable by shifting away from traditional responses of the criminal justice system and towards practices recommended by restorative justice, including family group conference and mediation as means of informing delinquent juveniles of the consequences of their behaviors. On the other hand, these practices place offenders in a process where they become accountable for the offenses they committed by realizing how they failed to act humanely and by learning how to behave properly

Protecting the environment through criminal law: a focus on state crime

Environmental protection has gained particular significance as a global problem, drawing the attention of many thinkers and states people. However, given their legislative power, environmental protection responsibilities, and the requirements for protecting corporations, governments play a vital role in ensuring greater economic interests since, on the one hand, the global economic development has an undeniable impact on the modern world and, on the other, the significant damages to the environment caused by these activities may lead to irreversible harms including climate change and the decline in biodiversity. Therefore, the question is how states can strike a balance between these two opposing views. However, a deeper look into how states behave in this area clearly shows that they attempt to identify and define development-oriented economic value along the environmental values, making states and their related corporations the biggest force behind the criminal activities that seek greater profits at the expense of the environment. Given the first principle of the Stockholm Declaration (1972) and the principle of equality before law, efforts need to be made to properly and effectively protect the environment against state crimes while states must be held criminally accountable for their environmental crimes, because turning a blind eye on the environmental harms caused by wrongly formulated state policies and keeping states immunes from criminal prosecution will turn on the green line for further environmental pollution

Protecting the environment through criminal law: a focus on state crime

Environmental protection has gained particular significance as a global problem, drawing the attention of many thinkers and states people. However, given their legislative power, environmental protection responsibilities, and the requirements for protecting corporations, governments play a vital role in ensuring greater economic interests since, on the one hand, the global economic development has an undeniable impact on the modern world and, on the other, the significant damages to the environment caused by these activities may lead to irreversible harms including climate change and the decline in biodiversity. Therefore, the question is how states can strike a balance between these two opposing views. However, a deeper look into how states behave in this area clearly shows that they attempt to identify and define development-oriented economic value along the environmental values, making states and their related corporations the biggest force behind the criminal activities that seek greater profits at the expense of the environment. Given the first principle of the Stockholm Declaration (1972) and the principle of equality before law, efforts need to be made to properly and effectively protect the environment against state crimes while states must be held criminally accountable for their environmental crimes, because turning a blind eye on the environmental harms caused by wrongly formulated state policies and keeping states immunes from criminal prosecution will turn on the green line for further environmental pollution