UMA BOA IDEIA: OS TRIBUNAIS JUVENIS DE PARES

Because Preventive Law is also, or is essentially, a cultural and citizenship issue (even because, in theory, everyone agrees with the principles of Preventive Law, but in practice, few dispense with the defeated logic of the system itself ” vertical “), any good idea to involve citizens in the application of justice, using the horizontal system of Preventive Law, is a good idea.

We have briefly touched upon the successful American experience of the Juvenile Peer Courts, which, though not a scientific application of the Preventive Law, demonstrates that in practice its principles, even if not studied, are easily demonstrates, first of all, that the Preventive Right is more natural to man than the Reactive Right.

Peer Juvenile Courts provide an opportunity for juvenile offenders to avoid effective detention if they are linked to a rehabilitation program. They exchange a guilty plea for a clean criminal record, and they must agree that their sentence is determined by a jury of peers, ie by other juvenile offenders.

According to testimonies, the experience is deeply striking, in the best sense, for all parties.

            The jury usually includes in the judgment the obligation of two future appearances in a court of the same type, and a letter of apology to the victims. The deadline for serving the sentence is usually two months and supervised by community members (parents, law students, probation officers, among others, always volunteers).

            Research shows that the rate of recurrence is much lower in these cases.

            Almost all the principles of such horizontal / preventive justice can be found here.