Фондация за развитие на правосъдието

Учебникът Детска пътека. Ръководство за професионалисти в контакт с деца в риск, пострадали, свидетели или извършители на престъпление с автори Ива Пушкарова, Диляна Гитева, Георги Кирилов, Веселина Берова и Димитър Манев е предназначена основно за прокурори, разследващи органи и съдии при взаимодействието с Координационния механизъм за закрила (КМ) в хода на администрирането на наказателното производство или отделни процесуални и следствени действия с участие на дете, което е пострадало от престъпление, очевидец е на такова или за което има данни виновно да е извършило такова. Целта на книгата е да подпомогне както индивидуалните професионални решения, така и екипната кохезия в мултидисциплинарните екипи по КМ.

За разлика от класическите ръководства, настоящото Ръководство се стреми да развие оптимално ниво на взаимно познаване на задачите, отговорностите и възможностите на отделните участници в КМ. Освен това то позволява различните цели и подходи на институциите, от името на които съответният професионалист взема тези решения, да бъдат съгласувани, като се избегне конкуренция и взаимно пренебрегване между тях. По този начин Ръководството съдейства цялостната институционална и обществена реакция по случай на дете, изложено на увреждащи го рискови фактори, да съчетава закрилата срещу тях, подкрепата за тяхното преодоляване и упрека, ако в резултат на рисковете детето виновно е осъществило общественоопасно поведение.

Ръководството подпомага процеса на вземане на решения, като предоставя практическа информация и препоръчителни и непрепоръчителни подходи, практики и протоколи в различни ситуации. То осъвременява и оптимизира КМ, като го съгласува с настъпилите след 2010 г. изменения в законодателството и институционалните практики, вкл. с оглед влизането в сила на нови институти и процедури от 1.09.2023 г. Материята е разпределена в три големи дяла, посветени съответно на:

1) природата, видовете и действието на фактори, повишаващи риска детето да пострада от или да извърши общественоопасно деяние, както и основните правила за разпознаване и отчитане на тяхното правно значение и за тяхното управление в съдебната практика и в работата на прокурора (Глава първа);

2) правното положение на дете, пострадало или очевидец на престъпление, в наказателното производство и разнообразните практики при процесуалното взаимодействие с него (Глава втора);

3) правното положение и правилата за процесуално взаимодействие с непълнолетен извършител на престъпление, който е в положението на задържан под стража, обвиняем/подсъдим, издирван с Европейска заповед за арест или ефективно лишен от свобода, доколкото изтърпяването на наказанието го приравнява на някоя от предходните групи (Глава трета).

Recidivism among adolescent offenders is a significant problem as the number of youths recommitted to penal institutions continues to grow each year. Research has identified several risk-factors that contribute to antisocial behavior, but there is significantly less research on risk-factors for re-offending among juvenile delinquents or protective factors that help prevent recidivism among adolescent offenders. Additionally, research has shown that effective treatment of female juvenile delinquents requires specialized conceptualization and treatment. The current study investigated the risk-factors for continued adolescent offending, the protective factors which prevent further delinquent behavior, and gender differences utilizing the BASC-2-SRP, BASC-2-PRS, and URICA. The Behavior Assessment System for Children, 2nd Edition assess for the presence of both risk-factors and protective factors among youth, while the URICA is helpful in assessing for readiness to change.

Abstract: This article focuses on the importance of the right to effective participation of children in conflict with the law in criminal (youth justice) proceedings. In particular, it explores two procedural aspects which are closely related to the right to child-friendly legal aid and the role of individual assessment. The authors claim that qualitatively identifying the needs of the child (through the instrument of individual assessment) and establishing a relationship of trust with a specifically trained legal aid lawyer is critical in raising the child’s status to that of an active participant in the proceedings and ensuring that the best interests of the child are observed.

The authors also suggest that such an initial encounter within the justice system forms an attitude (of either confidence or rejection) of the child towards public institutions and, accordingly, directly affects the effectiveness of further interventions. To support their position, the authors of the paper bring several examples from the comparative research carried out in two European projects, noting, regretfully, that the initial interventions often suffer from formal implementation and lack a systemic approach.

РЕЗЮМЕ
Анализът разглежда защитата на децата срещу престъпни посегателства, с фокус върху сексуалното насилие, и анализира съществуващите проблеми в детското правосъдие в България. Той идентифицира нормативните и практически пропуски, които затрудняват закрилата на децата жертви, и предлага потенциални решения за подобряване на системата.

ОСНОВНИ ПРОБЛЕМИ:
• Недостатъчна подготовка на магистрати: Съдиите и разследващите органи нямат специализирани знания за работа с деца жертви. Липсва и адекватно обучение за психологически подход към разпитите.
• Неефективна мултидисциплинарност: Липсата на координация между институциите (социални служби, разследващи органи, съд) води до формално изпълнение на задълженията без реална подкрепа за жертвите, най-вече поради липсата на ресурси.
• Слабо използване на "сините стаи": Разпитите на деца често се провеждат в неподходящи условия, което ги травмира допълнително и компрометира доказателствата.
• Вторична виктимизация: Множеството разпити, често повтаряни в хода на процеса, задълбочават психологическата травма на децата.
• Проблеми с отводите на съдии: Процедурата по отводи често води до забавяне на делата, както е илюстрирано в казуса с Д.Х., където многобройните самоотводи на съдии възпрепятстват правосъдието.
• Липса на ефективна психологическа подкрепа: Децата не получават необходимата помощ за справяне с травмата както по време на процеса, така и след неговото приключване.

The Dark Triad consists of three personality traits (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy). This is considered relevant for understanding the development of undesirable characteristics for society, frequently observed in young people and adults with antisocial and delinquent behaviours. Aversive personality traits have only recently aroused interest in researchers as a cohesive set of factors. The aim of this study was to analyse the associations of the DT (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) with juvenile delinquency, conduct disorder (CD), and trauma. For this, a total sample of Portuguese adolescents (n=601; Mage=15.95 years, SD=1.05 years, range 13-18 years) was used, subdivided into a male forensic group, male school group, and female school group. After the elaboration of multiple linear regression models, the results indicated that the psychopathy dimension was the one with the greatest association with juvenile delinquency and CD, while the narcissism dimension was the one with the greatest association with trauma. In future studies, the associations of the DT with juvenile delinquency, CD, and trauma in Portuguese adolescents should continue to be explored in the forensic and school contexts, to further clarify these relationships and contribute to the development and implementation of prevention and intervention programs for Youth with these characteristics.

Abstract: Juvenile delinquency is a pressing problem in the United States; the literature emphasizes the importance of early interventions and the role of the family in preventing juvenile delinquency. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, PudMed, and Scopus, we included 28 peer-reviewed articles in English between January 2012 and October 2022. We evaluated the existing literature regarding the risk factors, protective factors, and interventions related to juvenile delinquency. We searched articles that discussed reducing juvenile delinquency and recidivism in the U.S. and coded them into four overarching themes: family conflict and dysfunction, neglect and maltreatment, individual and family mitigating factors, and family- and community-based interventions. We found that family conflict and dysfunction and neglect and maltreatment were two primary predictors of juvenile delinquency. Notably, higher academic achievement and strong and positive parental relationships were factors that protected against delinquency amongst at-risk youth. Interventions that yielded optimal efficacy in curbing recidivism included family-based interventions, specifically family therapy, and community-based interventions. Considering multi-dimensional factors that affect delinquent behaviors, interventions should consider the influence of family, peers, neighborhood, schools, and the larger community. 

Настоящите стандарти са разработени по проект FOCUS и са част от ресурсите на проекта. Тази версия е разработена за пилотния процес, който ще се проведе във ФОКУС през 2021 г. в България, Холандия, Сърбия, Румъния и Гърция. Възнамеряваме да натрупаме и отразяваме знания и ресурси, свързани със стандартите по време на проекта и да публикуваме окончателна версия, след като проектът приключи през 2022 г.
Ребека О Донъл (Child Circle), пое водеща роля в разработването на стандартите, като същевременно получи ценен принос от експертите на FOCUS Силвия Рандацо, експерт по детско правосъдие, Annemieke Wolthuis, изследовател, медиатор и обучител Мариама Диало, регионален програмен мениджър Достъп към правосъдие, Регионален офис на Terre des hommes за Европа и Оринда Жони, регионален координатор на проекта FOCUS и нашите партньори – Център за права на детето (Сърбия), Defense for Children (Нидерландия), Институт по социални дейности и практики (България), Terre des hommes - Гърция и Terre des hommes - Румъния.

Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) brings together recently elected district attorneys as part of a network of like-minded leaders committed to change and innovation. FJP hopes to enable a new generation of prosecutive leaders to learn from best practices, respected experts, and innovative approaches aimed at promoting a justice system grounded in fairness, equity, compassion, and fiscal responsibility. In furtherance of those efforts, FJP provides district attorneys with best practices about a variety of critical and timely topics. For these topics, FJP has additional Issues at a Glance briefs and Key Principles available on the FJP website, as well as supporting materials, including model policies and guidelines, key academic papers, and other research. If your office wants to learn more about this topic, we encourage you to contact us.

Without proper protections, interrogations of children can have serious and harmful ramifications. These include, among others, Miranda waivers that are not truly knowing and voluntary, coerced and false confessions, wrongful convictions, trauma to young people, and inadmissible evidence obtained through improper interrogations. In addition to the inherent harm to children and their loved ones these practices cause, these troubling outcomes also result in diminished public confidence in the criminal legal system that, ultimately, erodes public safety and impacts the entire community. This Statement of Key Principles and Policy Recommendations outlines relevant research, emerging reforms, and best practices regarding the interrogation of children. Theaccompanying Model Youth Interrogation Policy (set forth in Appendix A) provides language for putting these principles and recommendations into practice.

Abstract: Child interviewing in legal cases is a multidisciplinary, multiprofessional topic that has been addressed as a following realisation, that accurate and eligible oral evidence, information or confession from children can only be obtained by a specific genre of inter-views. Child development experts and researchers have advocated for specialised techniques for forensic child interviewing since the 80s and 90s, along with specialised police training and practice. In the European Union the last decade could rightly be called the decade of child-friendly justice. During these ten years several legal instruments were implemented about children’s involvement in legal proceedings and their special needs and rights as a vulnerable group. This shift is reflected in national legislations, however, there is still room for improvement, especially in the everyday practices within the interrogation rooms.

A rich line of criminological theories and research has suggested that individual characteristics may be important to predicting criminal activity. However, there is limited research examining how individual characteristics may be related to the type of crime committed (e.g. violent, sex, drug). To provide guidance to these questions, the current set of two studies used latent profile analysis to identify groups of offenders based on individual factors (i.e. proactive and reactive aggression, and callous-unemotional traits), chosen for their interrelatedness and their established associations with crime, and examined whether these groups relate to type, severity or the number of crimes committed across two studies. In both studies, four groups of offenders were identified, but these groups were not associated with offending behaviors or patterns. Findings and implications are discussed.

Few studies have longitudinally investigated the criminal profiles of violent juvenile sex and violent juvenile non–sex offenders. To make up for this lack, this study used police records of juveniles to determine the nature of the criminal profiles of violent sex offenders (n = 226) and violent non–sex offenders (n = 4,130). All offenders committed their first offense in 1996 and were followed for 7 years. Results showed that violent sex offenders and violent non–sex offenders cannot be considered a homogeneous group because of different background characteristics and criminal profiles. Sex and violent offenses often constitute a small part of a broader criminal pattern. Further research is necessary to reveal in more detail the developmental and criminological patterns of violent and sexual delinquency. Treatment and intervention programs may benefit from this.

Research on juvenile justice aims to identify profiles of risk and protective factors in juvenile offenders. This paper presents a study of profiles of risk factors that influence young offenders toward committing sanctionable antisocial behavior (S-ASB). Decision tree analysis is used as a multivariate approach to the phenomenon of repeated sanctionable antisocial behavior in juvenile offenders in Spain. The study sample was made up of the set of juveniles who were charged in a court case in the Juvenile Court of Almeria (Spain). The period of study of recidivism was two years from the baseline. The object of study is presented, through the implementation of a decision tree. Two profiles of risk and protective factors are found. Risk factors associated with higher rates of recidivism are antisocial peers, age at baseline S-ASB, problems in school and criminality in family members.

Previous studies have described juveniles who sexually offended (JSO) as a rather heterogeneous population. In consequence, different typologies of JSO have been proposed for a better understanding of the causes and interventional needs of JSO. Three previously described types have received support in previous studies, namely, the victim age type (JSO offending against children vs. adolescents or adults), the co-offender status type (JSO offending as singles vs. in groups), and the crime history type (JSO with vs. without a previous history of crime). The validity of these types was tested in a consecutive sample of 223 criminal male adolescents, who had been convicted of a sexual offense between 2000 and 2008 in the Canton of Zurich (Switzerland). By analyzing nine offender characteristics, four victim characteristics and six offense characteristics, the best evidence was found for the victim age based type. The co-offender status and the crime history types were less well supported. However, all three types were related to each other and did not provide a comprehensive characterization of JSO. Therefore, an additional principal component analyses was performed searching for basic dimensions of juvenile sexual delinquency and leading to the following factors: single offender with severe molestation of a related child, persistent general delinquent with migrant background, older offender with alcohol use and familial constraints, multiple and aggressive offender with social adversities and offender with unselected and multiple victims. These five dimensions reflect different relevant factors of sexual offending behavior in male juveniles and may have further impact on forensic and clinical practice. 

Abstract: Giving special importance to the rights of the child, international and European instruments set certain standards aimed at strengthening their guarantees. The standards improving the juvenile offender’s status intend to ensure procedures that take account of the child’s welfare and strengthen their procedural position which, otherwise, because of their age and psychophysical development may be more vulnerable than in the case of an adult’s one. They refer directly to a juvenile offender in case of whom legal proceedings are conducted. This paper aims to clarify underlying issues of a specific procedural configuration, where separate proceedings are conducted regarding a juvenile offender, and separate criminal proceedings before a criminal court are run against an accused adult whose act is related to the juvenile’s act. It attempts to answer, in the context of European standards, the question on the most important rights of a juvenile whose punishable act is in a close relation to an act of an adult offender, and who, for this reason, appears in a criminal trial as a witness. This paper takes into account the European Union standards which result from international children’s rights instruments binding across the EU, the child-specific case law of ECtHR as well as the psychological aspects related to the psychophysical development of minors.

The protection of privacy of juvenile suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings is one of the fundamental principles of juvenile criminal procedure. The aim of this right is to prevent any unnecessary stigmatisation and labelling of juveniles suspected/accused as perpetrators (of criminal act) by their peers or others in their community. The involvement in a formal criminal proceeding can be very stressful for a juvenile and affect their further development and mental health. The protection of privacy during criminal proceeding helps them in their rehabilitation and reintegration into society after conviction. Countries usually protect the juveniles` right to privacy by closing the criminal proceeding for general public and by restricting the disclosure of information about criminal proceedings involving juveniles as suspects or accused persons to the media. In practice, this means that a limited number of people in criminal justice system has the right to access information about suspected/accused juveniles. Unfortunately, the present-day media often neglect this right and use information about juveniles in criminal proceeding in their news reports in a sensationalist way in order to increase their circulation. That kind of practice shows that this right is considered irrelevant and that the media and general public do not have appropriate knowledge about the importance and reasons why this right has been incorporated into the juvenile criminal procedure. This paper analyses the importance of the protection of privacy of juveniles who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceeding according to the international documents, ECHR, the relevant case law and the Directive EU 800/2016 with reference to the legislative solutions found in some EU Member States including Croatia.