Research And Perfection Of Juvenile Diversion In The Criminal Justice System

The juvenile court is known as the greatest invention in the judicial history since the British Magna Carta.Juvenile justice has been evolving around the “maximization of children’s interests” since its birth.“Interventionism” and “the concept of diversion” have always been the two basic theories supporting the development of juvenile justice system.Moreover,they have been in a dynamic game all the time.In the early days of the establishment of juvenile court,as the basis for the separation of juvenile justice and criminal justice,“the concept of diversion” was gradually forgotten.Interventionism dominated the juvenile justice.With the development of juvenile courts,interventionism became full of controversy due to the poor effectiveness of juvenile crime control and the change of social values.The justification of the juvenile court based on interventionism also conflicted with the criminal control function of the court,the balance of crime and penalty,and the legitimacy principle of the treatment of delinquents.In the middle and late20 th century,the labeling theory gradually became a new guiding theory of the juvenile justice.Label theory analyzes the causes of crime from the perspective of crime control mechanism itself.The theory holds that the process of crime control is also a labeling process,and the official crime control mechanism is also the cause of crime.Since then,the concept of diversion has revived and gradually became the leading concept of juvenile justice.Under the influence of the concept of diversion,the extraterritorial juvenile justice system paid particular attention to the application of informal procedures.A large number of delinquents were diverted from the judicial procedures and transferred to social welfare institutions for education and correction.The main task of the juvenile court was also limited to excluding juvenile delinquents from harsh criminal procedures,and helping them correct their mistakes in a community environment.Juvenile justice has gradually moved towards the development path to "emphasizing intervention but limiting official intervention".Article 4 of The Convention on The Rights of The Child also takes strengthening "non-institutional intervention" as the international norm of juvenile justice.There is also a diversion mechanism represented by conditional non-prosecution in Chinese juvenile criminal justice system,but the mechanism has a big gap with the world’s juvenile justice system.Therefore,it is difficult to reflect the spiritual core of "replacing punishment with education".It is found that there are a series of problems in the diversion mechanism of the Chinese juvenile criminal justice through institutional reflection.Nevertheless,there are still many opportunities to improve and develop the diversion mechanism.Comparing with the judicial diversion mode of minors abroad,On the basis of Chinese judicial system and judicial practice.The diversion mechanism of Chinese juvenile criminal justice must be improved.To the beginning,the procuratorate should be the leading agency for diversion.Next,minor crimes should be diverted.Thirdly,the diversion procedure should take the transfer hearings meeting as the prototype,and pay attention to the protection of delinquents’ procedural rights.Finally,the Safeguarding mechanism of juvenile criminal justice diversion is an indispensable condition for the effective operation of the system.Improving the alternative treatment measures after diversion and strengthening the construction of the support system for the protection of delinquents’ rights and interests should be taken as the core directions.