Criminal liability and sanctioning of youth

Criminal liability and sanctioning of youth Abstract The major topic of my rigorous thesis is Criminal liability and sanctioning of youth. Thesis is divided into four related parts and I analyse this issue especially from the view of substantive law. During periods of childhood and adolescence young people are not enough intellectually and morally mature and they do not have enough life experience. For this reason, I devote the first part of this thesis to short introduction to developmental psychology. I refer to psychological differences of young people and I describe basic specifics of childhood and adolescence as significant life periods from the developmental point of view. In the second part I introduce basic models of dealing with delinquent youth and the concept of restorative justice, which is the basis for the current Juvenile Justice Act No. 218/2003 Coll. I also provide historical overview of development of criminal justice against juveniles in the territory of the Czech Republic until today. In this part I also explain basic and the most important terms which are used in the Juvenile Justice Act. The third part of this thesis is devoted to the topic of criminal liability of juveniles. I discuss the fact that experts do not have the same opinion on intellectual and moral maturity - some of them..