A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PUNISHMENTS FOR MINORS OFFENDERS UNDER THE OLD (AND STILL VALID) AND THE NEW CRIMINAL CODE (English version)

The issue of criminal liability of the juvenile offender as well as the prevention and combating of juvenile delinquency have been and continue to represent an actuality in the criminal policy in modern states. It is presumed that the child needs special treatment in terms of criminal liability since he does not possess the correct representation of what his procedural rights and obligations provided by law are. Although the current Code gives preference to re-educational measures for juvenile offenders, leaving punishments as a last resort, court practice reveals the preponderant application of punishments, which, nonetheless, has not diminished the rate of criminality among juveniles. The institution of minority has, in the new Criminal Code adopted by Law no 286/2009 a distinct regulation from the one in force, aimed at the development in this line of the criminal law, to bring it into line with European requirements. The "non-criminal" pattern, as it is called in legal literature focuses on the educational measures and monitors the social reintegration of children in conflict with criminal law in ways appropriate to their age and personality, to ensure their impunity treatment for their well-being, directly proportional to their status and seriousness of the crime committed. By way of exception, a juvenile offender may be sentenced to a custodial re-educational measure ,if he is a repeat offender who served a previous re-educational measure, or if he started service of such measure prior to commission of the crime for which he/she is being tried, or when the punishment provided by law for the crime committed is imprisonment for terms of 7 years or more, or for life.