Penal mediation from a perspective of social control. French and spanish experiences

• Author: Giovanna Palermo
• Position: Researcher in legal sociology, deviance and social change Cassation lawyer Secretary General of the Cuam University Foundation Department of Psychology University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy
• Pages: 64-75

AGORA International Journal of Juridical Sciences, http://univagora.ro/jour/index.php/aijjs

ISSN 1843-570X, E-ISSN 2067-7677

No. 2 (2018), pp. 64-75

64

PENAL MEDIATION FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF SOCIAL CONTROL.

FRENCH AND SPANISH EXPERIENCES

G. PALERMO

Giovanna PALERMO, PhD

Researcher in legal sociology, deviance and social change

Cassation lawyer

Secretary General of the Cuam University Foundation

Department of Psychology

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy

Mail address:Giovanna Palermo, Agora University of Oradea, 8 Piaţa Tineretului St., Oradea,

Romania

E-mail: giovanna.palermo@unicampania.it

ABSTRACT

This research is focused on the penal mediation that is resorted in social, educational,

family, cultural, criminal and other conflicts, in order to obtain recognition not only in terms

of otherness, but above all of collective belonging. The article presents cases of mediation in

France and in Spain. The main idea is that mediation can be used in all the systems in which

the conflictual dynamics are manifested.

KEYWORDS: penal mediation, social control, conflict, criminal law

INTRODUCTION.

The age of globalization, in the second and third phase (the second already ended with

the twentieth century), in which we witness the full deployment of the productive and

commercial potentialities of humanity, has broken the "boundaries" of the relationship

between individual and institutions, spreading a feeling of "disorientation", fueled by the

widespread complexity of heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory values.

In the society of individualism the collective forms of control must give way to

individual and individualized forms, which go to work on the individual.

Often they are tools that exist or are born in the social, disconnected from the

institutional network and aimed at helping people to manage the relational conflicts that

enmesh them. In this context the mediation, precisely because it is born as experience and

social practice and constitutes an adequate response to the needs of the individual, it can

represent a new (at least for the right) and different modality conflict regulation, which allows

institutions to move closer to the individual, recovering the dual capacity and function of

promoting individual liberties and guaranteeing social order.

I. THE CRISIS OF INSTITUTIONS AND THE MEDIATION AS AN

ALTERNATIVE TOOL OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

The crisis of institutions and the consolidation of individualism, the widespread

lability of consciences and the common indifference towards the "set of values, norms,

customs that with varying effectiveness define and regulate durably, regardless of the identity