Reconciliation in Turkish criminal procedure for children involved to crime

The concept of restorative justice emerged in response to the needs arising from the inadequacies of the punitive justice system. Conciliation, also known as victim-offender mediation, is the most common application of restorative justice. The institution, which comes into being within the framework of a victim-oriented approach, foresees serious differences in terms of the perpetrator. Conciliation saves the perpetrator from the passive position of waiting under the threat of sanctions and puts him in an active position that gives him the opportunity to compensate for his mistake on the basis of communication and moral obligations. In this respect, it should be stated that the institution has a special meaning for child perpetrators. Because, in order to protect the children, whom we accept as victims of every crime they commit as children involved to crime, and to protect their interests, it is necessary to exclude them from the punitive justice system based on pure sanctions as much as possible. For this reason, in many countries, the mediation institution has started to be implemented primarily for children. The concept of juvenile justice has developed because children are mentally and physically inferior to adults. As a matter of fact, it is not possible for adults and children to be subject to exactly the same rules. In this context, the mediation institution must have different rules from those who are dragged into crime. Although the scope of the institution has been expanded in favor of child offenders with some changes made since its entry into Turkish criminal law, these regulations have remained limited. However, the mediation institution should be considered as a whole in terms of child perpetrators and issues such as its scope, mediator qualifications, children's rights to participation and expression of will should be rearranged. Of course, the main criterion when making these arrangements should be the best interests of the child.