Deferred Prosecution; A new Reflection of Abolitionism

The abolish themselves are skeptical about the capacity of criminal justice for crime control and believe that as long as there are easier and more human ways to control crime, punishment should not be used as a weapon in the first place. Abolitionism doctrine maintains that the formal system of criminal justice, not is less effective in the prevention of recidivism, but also criminogenic and label of crime causing him to commit crime again. Therefore, they advocates the non-interference of criminal law or, if it is investable, a minimal involvement in the process of trial.The findings of abolitionism in the criminal policy of different countries gave rise to decriminalize, depenalization and diversion. Deferred prosecution or non- prosecution is also a new concept in criminal procedure that is consistent with non-intervention criminal policy. This policy was proposed because of the failure of the traditional repressive approach of prosecution. Adversarial prosecution, judicialization and acceleration of prosecution, reduction in criminal population and regarding human dignity, selective prosecution of accuses are among the important consequences of the deferred prosecution. This article attempts to express concept and foundations of the deferred prosecution and investigates its manifestations in the Iranian criminal policy.