The role of mediation in addressing adolescent issues within legal and social science contexts

"Mediation is a process, almost always formal, through which a neutral third person tries, by organising exchanges between the parties, to allow them to compare their points of view and to seek with his help a solution to the conflict that opposes them" (BonaféSchmitt, 1992). The article intends to investigate the adolescent problems and the development in the juvenile field of restorative justice and criminal mediation, with particular reference to the institution of the suspension of the trial and probation, ex art. 28 of Presidential Decree no. 448 of 22 September 1988, which represents the main means by which juvenile trial mediation is carried out. In particular, by re-elaborating the data provided by the Department for Juvenile and Community Justice relating to a wide time span from 1992 to the present day, an analysis of the actual application of the said institution is carried out, also referring to the prescriptions given, with specific regard to those concerning the so-called direct and indirect penal mediation. The analysis allows to assess the validity and effectiveness of juvenile criminal mediation and in general of restorative justice models, which are increasingly at the centre of a renewed interest culminated with the Cartabia reform of the criminal process, which with the legislative decree 10 October 2022 n. 150 has finally led to the introduction of an organic discipline of the matter.