Evaluation of Rehabilitation Approach in Sentencing Juvenile Offenders

In Recent years, Juveniles Criminal Justice in many countries is under the influence of rehabilitation policies and attempts have been made to avoid harsh punishments. In Iranian criminal justice, this approach has led to new developments. In this regard, the fundamental question is that how much policymakers committed to the policy of rehabilitation children and juvenile offender? Qualitative content analysis of criminal law and nonparticipator observation (20 sessions) are used to answer that question. Results of research represent a confusion in sentencing process based on which rehabilitation model has not yet become the dominant model in this field. Sentencing based on severity of crime, emphasizing the custodial facilities(institutes) as the major sanction, lack of using evidence based sanctions, insignificance of rehabilitative and therapeutic aspects of sanctions and inadequate attention to community sentences and its shortcomings are some issues that shows weakness of rehabilitation idea. so it is necessary to use evidence based sentences, enrich theoretical approach and provide the implementation context for improving rehabilitative nature of juvenile sentencing