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Since the last few years, criminal policy authorities of Iran started to withdraw their previous emphasis on repressive approaches and under the impact of criminological studies and translation of policy initiatives in western countries new concept and vocabulary were entered into official discourse and criminal justice policy of Iran. Consequently, a list of community-based approaches to criminal justice system such as community-based punishment, community-based settlement council, community policing and community crime prevention became integral parts of the third and fourth 5-year Development plan (2000-4 & 2005-9) and the Second Judicial Reform Plan (2004-8) very rapidly. Regardless of how these ideas and policies are introduced to the Iranian criminal policy, the most important questions should be asked in this field are that to what extent thes policies will meet current needs of criminal policy of Iran? To what extent community-based approaches are adapted to socio-economic, cultural and political contexts in Iran? It seems that, successful reforms in the area of public participation in criminal justice needs to some pre-conditions such as; structural changes, cultural capacity building and understanding the principles or rationales which are standing behind each of these reforms. Our effort in this article is to describe and criticize two important aspects of community-based approach to criminal justice in Iran; Community-based punishments and settlement councils.

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 Deferred sentence, as a form of community punishment, is an aspect of participatory crime policy and crime control according to which a sentence will not be carried out if the convicted criminal meets certain requirements, such as complying with the conditions of probation. The finality of deferred sentence order depends on whether the court satisfies to comply with the requirements by the criminal or not, which may result to the sentence or punishment. The present article explores the provisions of deferred sentence in the Islamic Penal Code of Iran in the light of a comparative approach to three European legal systems (French, England and Germany) to find similarities and differences between the provisions in question. The article concludes that all provisions in Iran and the mentioned countries seek to meet the necessities of rehabilitative and reparative purposes of criminal sanctions for both offenders and victims.