Abstract

MERLINO is a research project funded by the European Commission (HOME/2011/ISEC/AG/4000002611). It started in January 2013 and will be developed until May 2015 by several institutions from six European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, Greece and Estonia). In Portugal, the project is being developed by researchers from the Catholic University of Portugal under the coordination of Raquel Matos (Faculty of Education and Psychology).

The aim of MERLINO project is to evaluate what must be implemented in juvenile justice policies for the prevention and early evolution of juvenile delinquency. The goal is to assess risk and protective factors for juvenile delinquent behaviour and to analyse how the context, the habits, the quality of the socialization of minors who commit crime differ from those in the control group (minors who are not inserted in criminal justice pathways).

Specific objectives:

1. To identify the factors that impact on deviance (risk factors) and verify whether there are differences in factors such as socialization, the peer group, the use of the Internet, etc. between the offender group and the control group;
2. To create a priority system in the selection of actions to be taken from the operators giving them tools to make choices based on the knowledge of key factors;
3. To give to the policy makers useful recommendations;
4. To deliver to schools and also to all the stakeholders a list of key factors to calibrate interventions (prevention of deviant behaviour).