Consenso alle norme e prevenzione dei reati. Studi sul sistema sanzionatorio penale

The book proposes a study on crime prevention, focusing on methods that promote spontaneous compliance by citizens, through strategies based on fostering people’s consent to norms, instead of deterrence. The criminal justice system, in Italy (and elsewhere), must ‘take democracy seriously’, which means it must strive to build the whole crime policy on the full, rigorous, respect of democratic principles and guarantees, in which consent, participation and spontaneous compliance play a central role. Restorative justice (victim-offende mediation, particularly) is proposed as an example of ways to respond to crimes and hold offenders accountable, while ‘taking democracy seriously’: thanks to voluntary participation of victims, offenders and community in the voluntary reparation of consequences of crime, restorative justice appears a ‘democratic’ response to the quest for criminal justice. A dialogue- and compliance-centered crime policy is well represented, in Italy, by the systems of the justice of the peace and juvenile justice, which are also discussed in the book.