Criminal Mediation in Europe
Penal Mediation in Belgium. Insights on the Basis of Registered Data.
Dieter Burssens, from the Nationaal Instituut voor Criminalistiek en Criminologie, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Punishment and its alternatives,” under the title “Penal Mediation in Belgium. Insights on the Basis of Registered Data.”. Here is the abstract: Since 1994, public prosecutors in Belgium may propose penal medation to suspects of crime. The supervision and follow-up of this procedure is carried out by 'assistants of justice' (probation officers) who systematically record crucial information and register it in the national database SIPAR. An exploration of this database reveals interesting insights regarding the actual practice of penal mediation. On the basis of data from 2007 we describe the number and characteristics of cases of penal mediation and the profile of the suspects concerned. On the basis of the available data we also investigated whether or not we could find relevant correlations between characteristics of (suspects of) the cases and the extent in which the cases have led to an agreement and a correct compliance of that agreement.
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Further Reading
- “Penal Mediation in Belgium. Insights on the Basis of Registered Data.”, by Dieter Burssens (Proceedings)