Juvenile Delinquency: Legal Proceedings and Characteristics
Writing
This causes delays, and trials result. It plays like a vicious circle; this delay makes it very difficult to locate witnesses, and once located, they may not remember with any degree of detail and accuracy the data to be obtained by the prosecution and the defense.
Reforms that would help streamline the functioning of the administration of justice and have a greater and better impact on crime control:
- Modernization of the functioning of judicial offices. This would be adapted to the management parameters of any labor organization, being necessary for planning, setting goals, designing strategies, periodic evaluation, etc.
- Renewal of the penal system. It is necessary to eliminate excessive bureaucratization, which may have been partially achieved with the introduction of the electronic calendar. Without the streamlining of procedures, computerization can lead to chaos.
- Specialized training should be given a priority to fill a particular post.
- Statistical System. It would be necessary to establish a system based on current techniques with the idea of meeting the changing realities that justice works.
Legal and Extralegal Characteristics of Children Subject to Legal Proceedings
Regarding the personal and social characteristics of these children, the first thing that stands out is the fact that criminal proceedings are opened to boys and girls who are both in standard situations in the family aspect and/or personal situations as well as problematic ones.
In this sample, the fact that minors who are initiated in criminal proceedings have different social and personal circumstances, both the most and least advantaged, is confirmed. The number of persistent young offenders, in principle, has an explanation for this increase that can be found in changing the subjective realm of the law.
This has been experienced with the entry into force of LO 5/00: When raising the legal limits of minority age, older offenders have been given more time to carry out criminal acts if they have begun to commit crimes at an early age. Another cause can be found in the considerable increase in the number of proceedings that all taxies have experienced in this new period: This has led to boost the processes involved in the most serious and minor offenses who have already made previously, filing more often primary juvenile cases and minor offenses, according to the letter of Art. 18 of the Act.
In women, the change in the age of criminal responsibility has certainly influenced this decline since women cease their criminal activity at a younger age than men. Also, the fact of recidivism, it was also, as nearly three-quarters of the women in the sample of LO5/00 was the first time they had a criminal trial, so the case of the girls have been among this group of cases that prosecutors have decided not to continue to refer to primary children. Despite this decline, it should be noted that women who came to be prosecuted for participating in did all kinds of delitos.
The number of foreign children has nearly tripled from one period to another. One reason for this increase may be in the deficient response that is offered in our Autonomous Community; these children are placed in an irregular situation: the lack of adequate enforcement leads these children to develop delictivas behaviors.
It should be welcomed that minors who are initiated in criminal proceedings belong to all strata. The various investigations into juvenile delinquency have always stressed not to differ in their social characteristics of minors who break the law.