THE EXPERIENCE OF STRUCTURE JUVENILE JUSTICE IN ENGLAND AND WALES AND ITS ROLE FOR UKRAINE

Abstract

For the effective construction of juvenile justice, it is necessary to study the experience of other developed countries. Juvenile justice in England has taken a long time to develop and continues to evolve. Children in England can be held criminally liable from the age of 10. In the early 1990s, instead of loyally diverting minors from criminal responsibility, a number of legal acts were adopted that made minors more responsible for their actions. For example it was the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which moved to a “just merits” approach and shifted the focus of sentencing to the nature and seriousness of the offense rather than the offender and his/her criminal record. One of the most important aspects of juvenile justice in England is preventive activity. Work with minors prone to illegal behavior, as well as with dysfunctional families, is provided, first of all, by law enforcement agencies and social services and consists in the organization of appropriate preventive and corrective measures. In case of detection of a dysfunctional family, in which the proper conditions for the normal development of the child are not created, moreover, where the child is insulted, punished or not paid attention to at all, which begins to negatively affect the child’s behavior, the child is temporarily removed from the family. There are different types of guardianship: short-term, which lasts a few months, and long-term, which can last for several years until the child reaches adulthood. There are also various early intervention programs. In England, there are specialized juvenile courts. Accused of murder; persons accused of committing a serious crime, for which a person over the age of 21 may be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of at least 14 years; persons charged with the crime of indecent assault are tried in the Crown Court. However, numerous studies prove the fact that juvenile workers in England need to improve their professional skills in working with minors. An analysis of the English experience has shown that they have norms that need improvement, in particular with regard to privacy, the use of stun guns for minors, raising the age of criminal responsibility, improving child-friendly justice, the need to move more quickly from a punitive approach to a more progressive one based on the principle “child first”. Instead, Ukraine needs to pay more attention to preventive measures of juvenile delinquency, studying the principle of “children first” for the further construction and development of juvenile justice.