Criminal mediation is considered as an alternative method for social reconciliation, which is held with the presence of the parties of a criminal dispute and the role of a third person called the mediator. Criminal mediation, which is also known by titles such as reconciliation, is the personal mediation of a third party between two parties of a criminal case and providing a basis for dialogue and agreement in order to return the situation to normal, which of course is possible with other programs such as conferencing, circles, restitution of the victim's situation, community services, victim impact statements and community restorative boards have similarities. The dispute resolution councils, as a judicial references, which mainly steps towards reconciliation between the parties to the proceedings, despite the diversity in the implementation of dispute resolution programs, the characteristics of most of these programs are the active participation of litigants and local communities, dialogue-oriented, efforts to reach a solution to compensate the victims and the offender's responsibility. Therefore, criminal mediation programs can be a good opportunity to expand and strengthen community-oriented in the judicial system. The root of adopting a community-oriented approach to criminal issues and recognizing people's participation in solving  Corresponding Author: hnaderi58@gmail.com How to Cite: Naderi, H., Matin Parsa, M., & Pourmazar, M. (2023). Analyzing the Position of Mediation in Dispute Resolution Councils with a Sociological Approach; (from Perspective of the Members of the Branches of the Tehran Councils). Journal of Criminal Law Research, 12(45), 153-192. doi: 10.22054/jclr.2024.75156.2608.
Hamid Naderi
Researcher of Department of Interdiciplinary Studies, Institute of Strategic Studies, Judiciary Research Institute, Tehran, Iran.
Mohammad Matin Parsa
Ph.D. in Criminal Law and Criminology, Allameh Tabatabaꞌi University, Tehran, Iran.
Mohammad Pourmazar
Master in Criminal Law and Criminology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
Journal of Criminal Law Research | Vol. 12 | No. 45 | Winter 2024 | 154
criminal disputes can be found in "public sociology" studies in general and "restorative justice" teachings in particular.
From the substantive point of view, since crime is considered a social phenomenon and behavior against the norms of society, and the offender and the victim are members of the society, so the process of pursuing the case and responding to the offender should also be in accordance with this social context. Categories related to criminal law, such as criminalization and separation of crimes from social deviations, ordering of response methods, prevention of crime, determination of responding references, evaluation of its performance and historical developments, are not separate from the community of the place of implementation or its specific social context, and this fact can be seen in the link between the law and the social. By giving identity to the offenders, preventing them from being labeled and providing an environment of acceptable shame, criminal mediation can lead to the correction and return of the offenders to the society as quickly and better as possible and their alignment with the norms.
The social approach of the judicial system is one of the meeting points of the social with the law, and it is a view of the process based on which the judicial system, especially the criminal justice system, along with the people consisting of natural persons and non-governmental organization, assume social responsibility towards the general issues related to the judiciary. This approach is based on returning to society and taking advantage of social capacities and creating a basis for the consolidation of social capital. Depending on the topics and stages, this partnership can have many manifestations, including legislation, monitoring the implementation of laws, crime prevention, crime detection and prosecution and investigation, settlement of lawsuits, determination of punishment and its implementation. If mediation in criminal matters is done independently and away from the jurisdiction of the judicial system, it can be a suitable context for realizing and strengthening the social approach of the judicial system. The main goal of the research is to analyze the criminal mediation in the dispute resolution councils of Tehran.
The current research was conducted using qualitative method in the form of thematic analysis .In order to collect data, an unstructured interview tool was used. The statistical population of the current research included managers and members of Tehran Dispute Resolution Council's branches and branches located in courts which was carried out by non-probability and purposeful sampling; and the samples were selected in a targeted manner at the level of the complexes of the Tehran Dispute Resolution Council until reaching theoretical saturation in the number of 11 people. Maxqda, the qualitative data analysis software, was used to encode and analyze the data. The interview protocol is set according to the main axes of the empirical background and by
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conducting a review of the body of knowledge related to the subject, and the operational method of the research is the content and thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is one of the methods of analyzing textual data, one of its characteristics is the use of categories adapted from theoretical models and applied to the data.
The data collected in the form of the main themes "relationships of the dispute resolution council with the judicial system and social contexts", "The nature and purpose of the dispute resolution council", "The quality of the implementation of conciliation and dispute resolution programs" and "The challenges of the dispute resolution council in the path of decriminalization and social reconciliation" formulated and affirming the necessity of councils' activity as an institution independent of the judicial system and arising from the society; Because in this lack of independence, the judicial approach has prevailed over the councils, considering this institution as a helping arm and a legal aid institution. The predominance of such an approach, along with the addition of judicial jurisdiction and the issuing of judgments, has caused the mediators active in the councils to move away from the role of facilitators and find an approach similar to that of the judges. The consequence of this judicialization is manifested in not taking advantage of the capacity of the local community, lack of attention to the needs of litigants, and lack of root-finding and problem-solving approach. Therefore, at present, the councils have moved away from their primary goals and their performance is very different from criminal mediation in a special sense.