Community Involvement in Administration of Criminal Justice in Iran

Since the last few years, criminal policy authorities of Iran started to withdraw their previous emphasis on repressive approaches and under the impact of criminological studies and translation of policy initiatives in western countries new concept and vocabulary were entered into official discourse and criminal justice policy of Iran. Consequently, a list of community-based approaches to criminal justice system such as community-based punishment, community-based settlement council, community policing and community crime prevention became integral parts of the third and fourth 5-year Development plan (2000-4 & 2005-9) and the Second Judicial Reform Plan (2004-8) very rapidly. Regardless of how these ideas and policies are introduced to the Iranian criminal policy, the most important questions should be asked in this field are that to what extent thes policies will meet current needs of criminal policy of Iran? To what extent community-based approaches are adapted to socio-economic, cultural and political contexts in Iran? It seems that, successful reforms in the area of public participation in criminal justice needs to some pre-conditions such as; structural changes, cultural capacity building and understanding the principles or rationales which are standing behind each of these reforms. Our effort in this article is to describe and criticize two important aspects of community-based approach to criminal justice in Iran; Community-based punishments and settlement councils.