Tímarit lögfræðinga - 01.10.1989, Síða 20

b) A great number of various diversion programmes has been
developed in the USA. Such programmes have spread to Europe, but on a
much smaller scale. So far no diversion programmes have been arranged
for adults in the Federal Republic of Germany, though some qualified
institutions run by churches, associations, clubs or municipalities are
available to young delinquents. They are instrumental by organizing
social help for young people in danger of becoming deviant or criminal.
The aim is to integrate them into appropriate smaller communities.
German criminal procedure, moreover, provides for the suspension of
trial for adults by the public prosecutor or by the judge under such
conditions as compensation of the victim, payment of an amount of
money to the state or to a welfare organization or work for the com-
munity. In the future this provision may be used as a basis for the
introduction of diversion programmes for adults in the proper sence
of the word. But this has not as yet been done. This manner of grant-
ing diversion by formal decision of the court or the prosecutor has
one advantage: it will secure judicial control of the programmes, and
it will better guarantee the procedural rights of the people involved.
It would prevent the extension of the network of social control to petty
cases which otherwise would remain without any sanction at all. In
this way one could avoid the net-widening effect of diversion. To
assist criminal law reform in Iceland the German diversion schemes
for young offenders may well be an interesting experience, one which
could easily be tested in this country.
6. Compensation and mediation. — Informal regulation of social
conflicts is the last step in the evolution of modern criminal policy.
It can and often will be part of a diversion programme. To be sure,
mediation and compensation is as old as mankind; but it is now iden-
tified as an appropriate means of avoiding criminal procedure and
penal sanctions by a more comprehensive intervention. Like diversion
it is in itself not a penal sanction, but quite to the contrary and even
less than diversion. It is situated at the greatest possible distance of
all kinds of penal reaction to crime. The underlying idea of regulating
conflicts is the attempt at solving permanent or temporary social
irritation. It gradually reinstates the peaceful relationship of persons
involved in a difference by identifying the causes of their conflict and
by removing the reasons for the confrontation. Resolving social
conflicts starts with compensation of the victim by the offender.
It aims at a composition and, if possible, a reconciliation of the parties
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