Ekspertai kaip viešosios politikos formavimo agentai: kriminologinis išmanymas ir nepilnamečių justicijos reforma Lietuvoje
Experts as the Agents of the Public Policy-Making: Criminological Understanding and the REform of the Juvenile Justice in Lithuania

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to analyze the multifaceted relationsn between the experts and other agents formed as a result of the public policy-making process implementing specific political objectives, in this case - the reform of the juvenile justice. In the overall context of the children rights' protection and the crimes' prevention the juvenile criminal justice may be seen as one of the areas that has to be reformed. However, due to various reasons the legal and the institutional reform in this area has been the least advanced only recently gathering some kind of a momentum. Various kinds of expert groups participate in the creation and implementation of the juvenile justice projects: lawyers, policemen, social workers, medics, reeducation experts, etc. Their representatives "on the top" work on the strategic reform plans and measures by means of manipulating their professional skills and academic discourse. Provided this, they activate the pace of reforms in the areas that favor both the development of the policy and their professional activities and career. In this article the author tries to explain the way the social knowledge on the juvenile justice has been mobilized when Lithuanian authorities delegate some objectives to the experts. The qualitative method and Feiring's three analytical levels methods have been used. The model embracing three levels - public policy-making (state level), experts' influence (interest groups level) and individual careers' - has been employed to explain the process that allows the state to, on the one hand, mobilize the experts' knowledge, and, on the other, specific expert groups monopolize the spheres of influece for the sake of power or career. (…) In the conclusion the author comes up with the idea that the creation of the juvenile justice reform and its implementation is the composite part of reforming the entire legal system. Therefore, in many cases its success or failure will depend on how fast will the entire legal and law system, as well as the mechanism of implementation are reformed. It is unless we see the opportunities necessary for the career and professional advancement being created and the independent criminology experts are drawn alone that the success will depend upon. On the other hand, the criminal justice reform that takes place under the difficult economic conditions will be driven both by the real and clear-cut criteria of the criminal justice policy, clear conceptuality and priorities, which by far have been the main obstacles standing in the way of the entire legal system reforms as well as the development of the juvenile justice.

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