Prospects for restorative justice in the juvenile justice system

Abstract

Summary. The present paper sustains a sociologically based reflection drawn from the models of juvenile justice and proposes the implementation of spaces thus far conquered by restorative justice through processes of penal mediation. Such a paradigm has in practice provided, while in need of further epistemological clarification, a solid account of itself in relation to the needs of the victim and the offender. Participation in mediation is suggested here as functional to the accountability of the minor, a critical step to attaining the activation of rehabilitation pathways, otherwise difficult to achieve. Such considerations may induce the legislature towards non-deferrable regulatory interventions and the juvenile judiciary towards reflecting on its own legal culture, marked by paternalistic attitudes, at the expense of choices simply made in terms of lenience.