Time in juvenile justice (Executive report)

Abstract

This research provides empirical information about the time that the Catalan juvenile justice system spends to sentence a juvenile (aged from 14 up to 18) that commit an offence. The efficiency of the penal process and the effectiveness of the sanction imposed to the youngster are often associated to a short length of the penal proceedings, especially regarding juveniles. This research studies 8.059 penal proceedings, that were opened in Catalunya by a prosecutor in 2008, and that involved young offenders. It provides information on the duration of these proceedings in general, and according to different variables (the characteristics of the youngster, the offence committed, the judicial resolution, the use of diversion, etc.). The research also compares some of the data from 2008 with the same data collected from 2005 (as a control year) and stresses the coincidences and differences. This is the first published research that settles on the length of proceedings in the juvenile justice in Catalunya.