Austria: A Protection Model

Juvenile Justice Systems in Europe – Reform developments between justice, welfare and ‘new punitiveness’1

“…Restorative justice has already been mentioned. Minimum intervention, too, plays a part but so also do the 'neo-liberal' tendencies towards harsher sentences and 'getting tough' on youth crime (Albrecht and Kilchling 2002;Tonry and Doob 2004;Jensen and Jepsen 2006;Junger-Tas and Decker 2006;Bailleau and Cartuyvels 2007;Ciappi 2007;Patané 2007;Cimamonti, Di Marino and Zappalà 2010;Pruin 2011). Tendencies towards minimum intervention, that is the prioritisation of informal procedures (diversion), including offender-victim-reconciliation and other re parative strategies, can also be viewed as independent models of youth justice: a 'minimum intervention model' (Cavadino and Dignan 2006: 199 ff, 205 ff).…”

“…Roughly 8% of all sanctions imposed on juveniles, see Dünkel in Dünkel et al 2011: 587; for Austria see Bruckmüller 2006. In Italy the procedural rules for youth justice introduced in 1988 have led to a move away from a purely rehabilitative and punitive perspective to a new conception of penal procedure. Restorative justice measures have gained much more attention and victim-offender media tion can be applied at different stages of the procedure: during the preliminary investigations and the preliminary hearing when considering 'the extinction of a sentence because of the irrelevance of the offence' or in combination combined with the suspension of the procedure with supervision by the probation service (Sospensione del processo e messa alla prova).…”