The concept and scope of restorative justice for juveniles According to the Islamic and Jordanian Legislations

The adoption of the restorative justice approach is more appropriate for the children in conflict with the law and more sensitive to achieving their best interests and rehabilitating them to facilitate their reintegration into society again (socializing), and to play a constructive role in the society, and not to return to violating the law again, unlike the traditional policy in the criminal justice, which did not give the sufficient weight to the personal and objective circumstances of the child, and it focused on the punishment and criminalization for every wrongful act without looking at restorative alternatives to the convicted child. The restorative justice, therefore, is an alternative approach to the ordinary criminal procedure in certain cases. The judicial system is not the only procedure that must address the phenomenon of children in conflict with the law in all cases. In certain cases, it is better to conduct a dialogue and mediation between the perpetrators and the victims, with the aim of reaching to repair the harm and to rehabilitate the perpetrators (children) according to the measures outside the judicial system. This is what Islamic Shari’a called fourteen centuries ago. The Shari’a (Islamic Law) defined the criminal reconciliation and approved it as one of the most serious types of crimes against the self by the adult, as it has indicated. According to the Shari’a, the juvenile, whether he is cognizant or not of, is not criminally responsible for the violations he commits nor a case will be filed against him and no penal action will be taken against him.