On The Diversion Of Procedures In The Case Of Minors

Diversion is a procedure mechanism which screens eligible cases out of normal criminal proceeding and then deals them with non-criminal treatment or other special procedures. Establishment and perfection of diversion mechanism for juvenile cases may contribute to the protection of human rights, prevention and correction of juvenile delinquency and judicial economy.United States is the birthplace of juvenile court and juvenile justice system. With the idea of diversion, it develops a diversion mechanism throughout the juvenile justice procedure. During the investigation, the police may preliminarily adjust part of minor criminal cases by station adjustment. On intake screen, instead of prosecution,the juvenile officer may choose to handle the case informally with a diversion agreement. Before the adjudication is made,the juvenile court can arrange a victim-offender mediation to reach an agreement as an alternative for adjudication.On the disposition hearing, the judge may divert the juvenile offender to probation instead of incarceration. Furthermore, the juvenile court may waive its jurisdiction to criminal court to deal with cases involving serious offense. The diversion mechanism in American juvenile justice system strikes a balance between individuation and standardization with informal procedure. It focuses on both prevention and punishment of juvenile delinquency and involves community engagement.China has been working on the establishment of juvenile case diversion mechanism,which includes discretional non-prosecution,conditional non-prosecution,victim-offender mediation and summary procedure. However, the current diversion mechanism still faces problems, such as lack of diversion options in investigation stage,inappropriate conditions for non-prosecution, deficiency of combination between diversion and treatment and insufficient protection for juveniles in summary procedure.By discussing the leading idea of juvenile justice system,the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, the compatibility of the specific diversion options and the delinquent juvenile correction system of the two countries, the article draws a conclusion that American diversion mechanism can be used for reference to the juvenile justice system in China. Based on the discussion, the article makes some suggestion on the perfection of China's diversion mechanism for juvenile cases,including empowering police to divert cases, improving the diversion in prosecution stage, enhancing the combination of diversion and treatment, making special rules for adoption of summary procedure in juvenile cases and developing new diversion options in trial stage.