HOUSE ARREST OF MINORS: A BALANCE BETWEEN PUBLIC SAFETY AND CHILD’S BEST INTERESTS

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the legal regulation and practice of applying house arrest to minors in the Republic of Uzbekistan in the context of ensuring a balance between the protection of society and the observance of children’s rights. The subject of the research is the legal norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan regulating the application of house arrest to minors, the practice of their implementation, and foreign experience in this area. The purpose of the work is to develop proposals for optimizing the legal regulation of house arrest for minors based on a comprehensive analysis of legislation, statistical data, and international experience. The methodological basis of the research is comprised of comparative legal, system-structural, statistical, and sociological methods. Statistical data on juvenile delinquency in Uzbekistan for 2010-2024 were analyzed, showing significant fluctuations in the 13-15 age group—from 129 to 744 individuals. The foreign experience of applying house arrest to minors in the USA, Germany, and France was studied. The research results indicate the compliance of national legislation with the main international standards of juvenile justice and, at the same time, the presence of significant problems in law enforcement practice. Shortcomings were identified in the differentiation of approaches to different age groups of minors, the lack of an educational component in the maintenance of house arrest, insufficient specialization of regulatory bodies, and weak interdepartmental interaction. The application of the results covers the improvement of criminal procedure legislation of Uzbekistan, law enforcement practice in the field of juvenile justice, and the organization of a system of alternative preventive measures for minors. The main conclusions include the need to introduce differentiated criteria for applying house arrest depending on the age of the minor, mandatory inclusion of educational measures in the conditions for the execution of the preventive measure, the creation of a specialized juvenile probation service, and the improvement of interagency cooperation in working with juvenile offenders.