Criminal Law
Mohammad Matin Parsa; hasanali moazenzadegan
Abstract
With the enactment of the Islamic Penal Code (May 1, 2013), a number of community-based punishments entered the Iranian legal literature under the title of alternatives to imprisonment. In this regard, the study of possible challenges in the application of new criminal institutions is one of the important ...
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With the enactment of the Islamic Penal Code (May 1, 2013), a number of community-based punishments entered the Iranian legal literature under the title of alternatives to imprisonment. In this regard, the study of possible challenges in the application of new criminal institutions is one of the important topics in criminal science, which will indicate the effectiveness of these institutions The authors of the article by focusing on the experience of key actors in issuing and enforcing community service orders, have attempted to identify such challenges at the judicial level through (first) a focus group was formed with the presence of 12 judges and (in the next step) interviews with 13 judges who have had experience in this area. The data gathered from the focus group and interviews indicate multiples judicial challenges in application of community service orders, which can be following into two main categories: "current and continuing punishment criteria inconsistent with the nature of community-based punishments (imprisonment- orientation and statistic-orientation)" and "lack of attention to enforcement infrastructures of community-based punishments. Based on the collected data and by analyzing the above findings, it can be argued that the existence of such challenges has been a subordinate of the wrong approach of criminal policymakers in relation to community-based punishments. This means that the legislature has been enacting policies on community service orders merely for reducing the prison population; And so, have been abandoned the preconditions for the main purpose of this punishment, which is the rehabilitation / reintegration of the convicts.
Criminal Law
hasanali moazenzadegan; Mohammad Matin Parsa
Abstract
Community service order is considered as the most prominent example of community-based punishments, entered in 2013 into the Iranian Legal and judicial literature. Therefore, it was expected legislator by a set of comprehensive statutes that are far from multiple challenges, created a context for effectiveness ...
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Community service order is considered as the most prominent example of community-based punishments, entered in 2013 into the Iranian Legal and judicial literature. Therefore, it was expected legislator by a set of comprehensive statutes that are far from multiple challenges, created a context for effectiveness of this new institution in line with achieving its main aim of reforming and reintegrating the perpetrator. Thus, the main question of the present article will be whether the set of statutes and rules and in accordance with the targets intended for community service order, so that it leads to the greater effectiveness of this concept? In this regard, the authors at first studied 150 related judicial decisions and identified the judges issuing them (purposive sampling) as the main actors in this study and the gathered the data afterwards by conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews gathered its data. The data indicated that there are legal challenges at the sentencing stage and subsequently after conviction. The research findings also show that Iran's macro-judicial policies related to community service order (reducing the punishment of Community Service Order as an alternative to imprisonment and considering it as a means to reduce prison population) were not commensurate with the inherent goals of this community-based punishment. And finally, it has paved the way for many challenges. This disproportionate targeting can be categorized into the following two classifications: “Failure to identify actors in proportion to the nature of the punishment”, “Failure to identify situations appropriate to the nature of the punishment”.
