NCJ Number
228938
Date Published
January 2008
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This description of the prosecutorial diversion methods used by the prosecution in the Netherlands and other Western European Countries addresses the "filter function" of the Netherlands prosecution service and prosecutorial discretion in other Western European countries (England and Wales, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Austria).
Abstract
The "filter function" of the prosecution service in the Netherlands pertains to the extent of the service's discretionary power to divert a case out of the formal flow of criminal justice processing. Transaction is a form of diversion in which the offender voluntarily pays a sum of money to the Treasury or fulfills one or more financial conditions specified by the prosecution service in order to avoid further criminal prosecution and a public trial. The Financial Penalties Act of 1983 expanded the scope of transactions to include crimes that have a statutory prison sentence of less than 6 years, which is the case for the overwhelming majority of crimes in the Netherlands. More than one-third of all crimes dealt with by the prosecution service are now settled out of court by transactions. A transaction benefit's the offender by avoidance of a public trial, no registration of a criminal offense, and the predictability of the sentence. A disadvantage for the offender is that he/she gives up the right to be sentenced by an independent court accompanied by all legal guarantees. The prosecution service benefits by saving time and expense associated with formal criminal processing. In order to minimize the risk of arbitrariness and disparity in the application of transactions, the Board of Prosecutors-General has issued guidelines for the common crimes for which a transaction is most often used. The main aim of prosecutorial diversion in the other countries mentioned is to reduce the caseload of the courts for less serious criminal cases. 6 footnotes