A research study, ”Alternatives to prosecution of minors in Romania” was carried out within the AWAY project. The study analyses the institutional architecture, the juvenile justice legislation and its practices.  The research performed by PhD professor Durnescu and Corina Popa, presents a critical perspective on juvenile justice system in Romania, with focus on alternatives to prosecution (diversion).   

The authors had in view the EU and UN standards and studied the extent to which the Romanian legislation, institutions and practices are correlated with these standards.  

The project specialists and decision makers include professionals from justice system, police, social assistance, with focus on disadvantaged areas outside urban regions: judges, prosecutors, lawyers, probation officers, social workers, social service managers, educators. The project intended to make sure that these professionals become more aware and better trained regarding diversion methods for suspected or investigated children who benefit from procedural guarantees of EU Directives 2016/800, 2012/13, 2012/29.

Thus, the project team prepared an online course describing diversion methods and necessary tools for operation by professionals in their future activities. The online course is available at this link on ChildHub platform dedicated to social work professionals.

Also, a two-day training session was held in Bucharest, Craiova and Brasov for a group of professionals in juvenile justice, child education and protection, in the period October – November 2018. The 60 participants studied in detail notions related to alternative methods of solving criminal processes for youth in conflict with the law.  The session facilitated creation of an active network of professionals that includes probation officers, psychologists, social workers, school counselors, prosecutors, police officers, representatives of local communities and other organisations in this field.

The training was delivered by the following legal experts: :

- Smaranda Witec, Lecturer at the Faculty of Social Assistance and Sociology, University of Bucharest ,

- Georgiana Gheorghe, Executive Director, APADOR-CH,

- lawyer Nicoleta Popescu, APADOR – CH,

- Silviu Dumitru, expert, GRADO.

A Child Advisory Board (CAB) including 15 youth in contact with the law was set up within Away project. During 11 CAB meetings, in Craiova and Bucharest, CAB members were invited to tell their opinion on specific topics and provide support for the content of a brochure adapted to the young audience. The brochure describes the juvenile justice system and is intended to increase awareness of rights of children in judicial procedures.

The title of the brochure is „Juvenile Justice from A to Z”   and it corresponds to children’s level of understanding, being adapted to the specific local legislation in Romania. The brochure approaches the juvenile justice system, including alternative methods to solve criminal processes, and presents to the youth the roles of various specialists and the rights of children as suspects, offenders, witnesses or victims. It can be downloaded from here 

AWAY project is funded from the ”Rights, Equality and Citizenship” Programme of the European Union and it is operational in five European countries: Bulgaria – through the Programme for the  Development of the Judicial System, Croatia – through Brave Phone Croatia, Romania – through Terre des hommes, Belgium – through Defence for Children International (DCI) and International Juvenile Justice Observatory (IJJO), Hungary – under coordination by , Terre des hommes Regional Hub for Central and South-Eastern Europe and Global Network for Public Interest Law – PILNET.

Results

15 young people in conflict with the law received legal assistance

64 specialists were trained

1 research on alternatives to prosecution

1 online course on alternatives to prosecution