Focusing on diversion, milder sentencing, and special criminal treatment, all jurisdictions studied tend to divert juveniles from serious criminal consequences, at least as far as minor offenses are concerned, but the modes of diversion differ greatly from country to country. There is a long tradition throughout European criminal justice systems of treating young offenders in a special way. However, there are large differences between countries in terms of the procedures used. Sometimes juvenile offenders are diverted from the justice system, sometimes they get milder sanctions, and often, they are dealt with by special proceedings or courts or within the civil justice system. Consequently, the impact of juvenile offending on the workload of the juvenile justice system differs from one country to another, leading to the current variety of societal and judicial response to juvenile offenses and offenders that exists throughout Europe. To better understand the overall picture there is a need to observe the national differences in handling juvenile offenders in order to make an appropriate comparison. This article focuses on the age of criminal responsibility, ways to divert juvenile offenders from the criminal justice system or avoid criminal justice responses to them, juvenile proceedings, and special reactions and sanctions. In spite of different approaches there is a common trend towards preventing juvenile offenders from being treated by criminal courts and being sentenced to criminal sanctions. Tables and references