INTENSIFIED SUPERVISION AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST JUVENILES

Abstract

In February 2010, the first and heretofore the only juvenile law fully titled the Law on Protection and Treatment of Children and Juveniles in Criminal Proceedings in the Republic of Srpska was adopted. According to this legislation, a system of alternative measures and criminal sanctions is being imposed on juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses in the Republic of Srpska (the same case is with other two juvenile laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the juvenile legislation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and it consists of: 1. alternative measures: a) police warning and b) educational recommendations and 2. criminal sanctions: a) educational measures, b) juvenile prison sentence and c) security measures.

In practice, the educational measures are by far the most applied category of criminal sanctions, and the most applied among them is intensified supervision. Intensified supervision, provided for by our legislation in three manners, (by parents, adoptive parents or guardians; in another family or by the competent guardianship authority) is not a novelty like some other educational i.e. alternative measures in the juvenile criminal legislation of the Republic of Srpska, but they are a separate, an independent type of educational measure, which come after the measures of warning and guidance and before the most difficult, institutional educational measures. This paper discusses precisely the educational measure of intensified supervision and its application in proceedings against juveniles.