A Practical Research On Judicial Social Workers Acting As Appropriate Adults In Juvenile Trial Work

With the in-depth advancement of the reform of China’s judicial system,the judicial system to protect the legitimate rights and interests of minors has been increasingly improved,and the trial mechanism for minors has been continuously innovated.The juvenile justice system has been formed,which is guaranteed by the relevant legal system for minors and assisted by professional social forces.In the trial of minors,in order to strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of minors involved without legal representatives,the appropriate adult participation system was introduced into China from the west,and while carrying out localization practice,we tried to introduce social forces to strengthen the protection and education of minors.The purpose of juvenile trial is not only to convict and sentence the minors involved,but also to improve the status quo of the minors from family,campus,society,and other problems,help the minors involved improve their ability to solve problems,so as to realize the minors involved to return to society.The subject selection of appropriate adults provides us with a new idea.When assuming the role of appropriate adults,judicial social workers can effectively protect the litigation rights of minors involved with their professional service advantages and the value concept of helping people to help themselves,and play the role of supervision,support,communication and information transmission,so as to promote the smooth progress of juvenile justice.As there are no relevant policies and regulations on the current practice of judicial social workers playing the role of appropriate adults,there are few local practical studies.Whether judicial social workers can achieve the purpose of juvenile trial remains to be verified.Therefore,this study takes "judicial social workers participate in the trial of minors as appropriate adults"as the research core,combined with the trial cases of the juvenile court of W City,through semi-structured interviews and semi-participatory observations,focuses on the analysis of the practice and effect of the judicial social workers as appropriate adults,compares and summarizes the advantages and characteristics of the judicial social workers,as well as the practical problems faced by the current judicial social workers as appropriate adults.Through this research,it is found that when judicial social workers become appropriate adults to participate in the trial of minors,and give play to the professional advantages of social workers,they have a positive effect on the minors involved and the trial work.With an attitude of equality,respect and acceptance,professional and scientific service methods,proactive actions and abundant social resources,judicial social workers have helped the minors involved in the case solve their plights,while achieving the goal of education and correction on the basis of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of minors involved and not interfering with the judicial trial.But at the same time,the judicial social workers also face a series of difficulties in the process of playing the role of appropriate adults:First of all,the lack of relevant legislation on the intervention of judicial social workers as appropriate adults in the process of case trial weakens the effectiveness of judicial social workers as appropriate adults to a certain extent;Secondly,the social recognition of appropriate adults and judicial social workers is not high;Thirdly,the departments did not coordinate well in selecting appropriate adults;Finally,there is no clear guarantee of funds for the time being;In addition,the professional ability of judicial social workers needs to be improved.In order to give better play to the effectiveness of judicial social workers as appropriate adults,this paper proposes a series of measures to improve the intervention of judicial social workers in the appropriate adult participation system according to the analysis of the advantages and dilemmas of the research,including strengthening the construction of relevant legislation,the construction of institutional mechanisms and the construction of talent teams.The purpose of the improvement path of this research is to realize the intervention of judicial social workers in juvenile trial work,and to continuously improve the trial workflow,so as to promote the development of juvenile justice system towards socialization and diversification.