Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

21-51

Authors: Barbara Stańdo-Kawecka

The paper discusses the findings of a study aimed at an empirical verification of a well-known criminological concept: the Sykes and Matza concept of neutralization techniques from the classical trend of positivist criminology. What Sykes and Matza see as the factor of juvenile delinquency are mechanisms of justification of one’s own delinquent behavior. Reverting to functionalim, the authors assume a social consensus on the basic values and norms of behavior. Juvenile delinquents generally recognize the same values and norms as non-delinquent youth but, unlike that youth, they grow proficient in neutralizing those norms so as to prevent them from influencing their behavior. According to Sykes and Matza, norms are neutralized through finding and accepting justifications for one’s own deviant behavior. Five types of such neutralization techniques heve been distinguished according to the contents of those justifications: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. In their conception of neutralization techniques, G.M. Sykes and D. Matza mainly describe and classify the ways of excusing one’s own deviant behavior and provide but a perfunctory discussion of the mechanizm of neutralization itself. L. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance proves useful in explaining the psychological mechanizm of neutralization of recognized norms. Assumptions of the conception of neutralization techniques and the theory of cognitive dissonance provided the grounds for hypotheses which were subsequently submitted to empirical verification. The subject was limited to neutralization of the rule “do not steal” interpreted as a ban appropriation on theft and a rule of respect for another person’s property. Criminologists have long questioned the desing of empirical study where achool youth are treated as non-delinquent and examined as a control group oppesed to juvenile delinquents in houses of correction or educational institutions. In the present study, three groups were examined: ‒ juvenile delinquents confined to a reformatory or home for detained juveniles by a judicial decision as perpetrators of offences against property (84 persons); ‒ school youth not involved in acts against another person’s property, called non-delinquent youth (70 persons); ‒ school youth involved in acts againts another person’s property, called actually delinquent (37 persons); The groups of “non-delinquent” and “actually delinquent” persons were distinguished from school youth by means of a self-report survey. Of the original hypotheses, only one was confirmed by the findings. The exemined groups appeared to differ significantly in their approval of the techniques of neutralization of the norm of honesty, the differences trending as expected. The lowest approval of statements expressing various excuses for breaches of another person’s property was found among the non-delinquent youth. The group that most often approves ot such excuses are wards of reformatories and juvenile homes; however, they do not differ much in this respect from the actually delinquent youth. All of the examined groups have similar priorities as to the separate types of excuses. The type accepted most often is “condemnation of the condemners”. In particular, a statement that “the police and judges are corruptible and malicious”enjoys great popularity. The types accepted least often, instead, are excuses consisting in “denial of injury” and “appeal to higher loyalties”. What could not be conformed are hypotheses as to absence of differences between the groups with respect to appraisal of one’s own honesty and acceptance of the rule “do not steal”. Non -delinquent youth appraise themselves much higher in terms of honesty than the remaining two groups. Wards of reformatories and juvenile homes, instead, appraise themselves somewhat lower than the actually delinquent youth. The non-delinquent youth show the strongest acceptance of the norm of honesty. The degree of acceptance of that norm among wards of reformatories is similar to that among actual delinquents, the former showing a somewhat stronger acceptance of the rule “do not steal” than the actually delinquent group. Another hypothesis that was not confirmed concerned a tendency to neutralize the rule “do not steal” once it has been violated; the method used here was projection where the respondents were to complete unfinished stories. Against expectations, the tendency to neutralize that norm once it has been violated appeared to occur much more often among school youth than among wards of reformatories and juvenile homes. Of the various methods of reducing the anxiety resulting from a breach of another person’s property, both groups of school youth most often suggested neutralization of the norm of honesty. Wards of institutions, instead, much more often mentioned methods other than neutralization of the violated norm: e.g., focus on the derived or potential profit, or focus on the absence of threat with any negative consequences from without. The study questioned the role of delinquent neutralizations as conceived by Sykes and Matza in the origin of juvenile delinquency. Unforfunately, the findings could not be interpreted explicitly. According to the theoretical assumptions made, a number of possible explanations of the findings can be suggested which at least party exclude one another. A new empirical study would be necessary to verify those explanations.

79-96

Authors: Irena Rzeplińska

Forfeiture of property is one of the oldest penalties in Polish law. Its origins can be traced in pre-state law, in the penalty of exclusion from tribe. Anybody could kill a person thus punished and destroy his property, and would suffer no penalty for such acts. Later on, in early Middle Ages, the penalty of plunder was introduced: the offender’s possessions were looted, and his house burned. Destruction of the offender’s property as a penal sanction resulted from the conception of crime and punishment of that time. Crime was an offence against God, and punishment was seen as God’s revenge for crime – that offender’s house was destroyed as the place that had become unchaste, inhabited by an enemy of God. The penalties imposed in Poland in the 12th and 13th centuries were personal, material, and mixed penalties. There were two material penalties: forfeiture of the whole or part of property and pecuniary penalties. The utmost penalty was being outlawed which consisted of banishment of the convicted person from the country and forfeiture of his property by the ruler. Being outlawed was imposed for the most serious offences; with time, it became an exceptional penalty. In those days, forfeiture of property was a self-standing, as well as an additional penalty, imposed together with death, banishment, or imprisonment. As shown by the sources of law, forfeiture of property (as an additional penalty) could be imposed for “conspiracy against state” rape of a nun forgery of coins, cheating at games, and profiteering. Other offences punishable in this way included murder, raid with armed troops and theft of Church property, murder of a Jew committed by a Christian, and raid of a Jewish cemetery. Data on the extent of the imposition of that penalty in the early feudal period are scarce; as follows from available sources, it was applied but seldom. The consequences of forfeiture were serious in those days. Deprived of property, the convicted person and his family inevitably lost their social and political status which made forfeiture one of the most severe penalties. From the viewpoint of the punishing authority (duke), forfeiture was clearly advantageous due to its universal feasibility; to the duke’s officials, it was profitable as they were entitled to plunder the convicted persons’s movables. In the laws of the 16th and 17th centuries, forfeiture was provided for: serious political crimes (crimen leaesae maiestatis – laese-majesty; perduelio – desertion to the enemy), offences against currency and against the armed forces. As an additional penalty, it accompanied capital punishment and being outlawed. The law also provided for situations where forfeiture could be imposed as a self-standing penalty. In 1573, the Warsaw Confederacy Act which guaranteed equality to confessors of different religions banned the inposition of forfeiture for conversion to another faith. Initially absolute – the whole of property being forfeited and taken over by the Treasury where it was at the king’s free disposal – forfeiture of property was limited already in the 14th century. To begin with, in consideration of the rights of the family and third to forfeited property, the wife’s dowry was excluded from forfeiture. Later on, in the 16th century, the limitations concerned the king’s freedom of disposal of forfeited property. A nobleman’s property could no longer remain in the king’s hands but had to be granted to another nobleman. Forfeiture of property can also be found in the practice of Polish village courts; as follows from court registers, though, it was actually seldom imposed. European Enlightenment was the period of emergence of ideas which radically changed the conceptions of the essence and aims of punishment, types of penalties, and the policy of their imposition. In their writings, penologists of those days formulated the principle of the offender’s individual responsibility. This standpoint led to a declaration against forfeiture of property as a penalty which affected not only the offender but also his family and therefore expressed collective responsibility. The above ideas were known in Poland as well. They are reflected in the numerous drafts of penal law reform, prepared in 18th century Poland. The first such draft, so-called Collection of Jidicial Laws by Andrzej Zamojski, still provided for forfeiture. A later one (draft code of King Stanislaw August of the late 18th century) no longer contained this penalty. The athors argued that, affecting not only the offender, that penalty was at variance with the principles of justice. The drafts were never to become the law. In 1794, after the second partition of Poland, an insurrection broke out commanded by Tadeusz Kościuszko. The rebel authorities repealed the former legal system and created a new system of provisions regulating the structure of state authorities, administration of justice, and law applied in courts. In the sphere of substantive penal law and the law of criminal proceedings, an insurgent code was introduced, with severe sanctions included in the catalog of penalties. Forfeiture of property was restored which had a double purpose: first, acutely to punish traitors, and second – to replenish the insurgent funds. When imposing forfeiture, property rights of the convicted person’s spouse and his children’s right to inheritance were taken into account. Yet compared to the administration of justice of the French Revolution with its mass imposition of forfeiture, the Polish insurgent courts were humane and indeed lenient in their practice of sentencing. After the fall of the Kościuszko Insurrection, Poland became a subjugated country, divided between three partitioning powers: Prussia, Russia, and Austria. The Duchy of Warsaw, made of the territories regained from the invaders, survived but a short time. In the sphere of penal law and the present subject of forfeiture of property, that penalty was abolished by a separate parliamentary statute of 1809. After the fall of the Duchy of Warsaw, Poland lost sovereignty and the law of the partitioning powers entered into force on its territories. In the Prussian sector, a succession of laws were introduced: the Common Criminal Law of Prussian States of 1794, followed by the 1851 penal code and the penal code of the German Reich of 1871. Only the first of them still provided for forfeiture: it was abolished in the Prussian State by a law of March 11, 1850. Much earlier, forfeiture disappeared from the legislation of Austria. lt was already absent from the Cpllection of Laws on Penalties for West Galicia of June 17,1796, valid on the Polish territories under Austrian administration. Nor was forfeiture provided for by the two Austrian penal codes of 1803 and 1852. Forfeiture survived the longest in the penal legisation of Russia. In 1815, the Kingdom of Poland was formed of the Polish territories under Russian administration. In its Constitution, conferred by the Tsar of Russia, a provision was included that abolished forfeiture of property. It was also left in the subsequent Penal Code of the Kingdom of Poland, passed in 1818. Forfeiture only returned as a penal sanction applied to participants of the anti-Russian November insurrection of 1831. The Organic Statute of 1832, conferred to the Kingdom of Poland by the Tsar, reintroduced the penalty of forfeiture of property. Moreover, it was to be imposed for offences committed before Organic Statute had entered into force which was an infringement of the ban on retroactive force of law. Of those sentenced to forfeiture in the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia as participants of the November insurrection, few had estates and capital. A part of forfeited estates were donated, the rest were sold to persons of Russian origin. The proces of forfeiting the property of the 1830–1831 insurgents only ended in 1860 (the Tsar’s decree of February 2/March 2,1860). After November insurrection, the Russian authorities aimed at making the penal legislation of the Kingdom of Poland similar to that of the Russian Empire. The code of Main Corrective Penalties of 1847 aimed first of all at a legal unification. It preserved the penalty of “forfeiture of the whole or part of the convicted persons’ possessions and property” as an additional penalty imposed in cases clearly specified by law. It was imposed for offences against the state: attempts against the life, health, freedom or dignity of the Emperor and the supreme rights of the heir to the throne, the Emperor’s wife or other members of the Royal House, and rebellion against the supreme authority. Forfeiture was preserved in the amended code of 1866; in 1876, its application was extended to include offences against official enactments. The penalty could soon be applied – towards the participants of January insurrection of 1863 which broke out in the Russian Partition. The insurgents were tried by Russian military courts. After the January insurrection, 6,491 persons were convicted in the Kingdom of Poland; 6,186 of tchem were sentenced to forfeiture of property. Of that group, as few as 28 owned the whole or a part of real estate; 60 owned mortgage capital and real estate. The imposition of forfeiture on January insurgents stopped in 1867 in the Kingdom of Poland and as late as 1873 in Lithuania. The penalty was only removed from the Russian penal legislation with the introduction a new penal code in 1903. As can be seen, the Russian penal law – as opposed to the law of Prussia and Austria retained forfeiture of property the longest. It was designet to perform special political and deterrent functions as the penalty imposed on opponents of the system for crimes against state. It was severe enough to annihilate the offender’s material existence. It was also intended to deter others, any future dare-devils who might plan to resist authority. It was an fitted element of the repressive criminal policy of the Russian Empire of those days. Forfeiture of the whole of property of the convicted person can be found once again in the Polish legislation, of independent Poland this time: in the Act of July 2, 1920 on controlling war usury where forfeiture was an optional additional penalty. At the same time, the act prohibited cumulation of repression affecting property (fine and forfeiture could not be imposed simultaneously). It originated from the special war conditions in Poland at the time. The ban on cumulation of repression affecting property is interesting from the viewpoint of criminal policy. The Polish penal code of 1932 did not provide for the penalty of forfeiture, and the Act on controlling war usury was quashed by that code’s introductory provisions. In the legislation of People’s Poland after World War II, forfeiture of property was re-established and had extensive application.

137-153

Authors: Beata Gruszczyńska

This work contains a statistical analysis of crime in Warsaw in 1992 based on the data on crime recorded by the Warsaw Police Headquarters. Changes in the dynamics, structure, and spatial distribution of crime in the years 1988 to 1992 are shown in accordance with the city’s basic administrative division into 17 districts.Territorial differentiation of crime in areas subordinated to the separate police stations (47) is shown in figures and maps of rates and changes in crime in 1992 as compared to 1991. Separated because of their specific nature are typical big city areas, neighborhoods of railway stations and the airport, as well as suburbs. Changes in crime recorded in Warsaw in 1989‒1992 were relatively much greater than those found on the national scale. An exception here was the year 1990 when a similar growth in the proportion of recorded offences took place both in Warsaw and Poland – by 64% and 61% respectively as compared 1989. After a rapid growth of recorded crime staring in 1989, a downward trend began in 1991 at a pace that was higher in Warsaw than all over Poland. In 1992, the crime rate (mean numbers of offences recorded yearly per 100 thousand of the population of a given area) in Warsaw was 2.3 times higher than the national average which was a drop as compared to 1990 and 1991 when the indices were 2.7 and 2.6 respectively. Changes in the extent of crime in the separate districts of Warsaw in 1989‒1992 have been depicted by chain indices of dynamics. The values of those indices manifest considerable differences in the changes in crime between the separate districts, and occurrence of opposing trends in succeeding years. The districts that had the greatest growth in crime in 1990 (Mokotów, Ochota, Praga Południe, Żoliborz) showed the greatest drop next year (1991). A similar trend could be found in 1992 in the districts of Praga Północ and Śródmieście (an increase, relatively high as compared to the other districts, followed by the greatest decrease). These findings may evidence both “displacement” of real crime, and the impact of other factors related to the activities of the police and public prosecutor’s office (in the spheres of both crime prevention and control, and the methods of recording offences). As shown by analysis of the rates and structure of crime in the separate disricts of Warsaw, the different areas of the city are much differentiated in this repect. In 1991 and 1992, differentiation of the rates crime was three times higher as compared to 1990. The highest crime rates could be found in Śródmieście – 10265.1, and Praga Północ – 6145.5; this resulted, among other things, from concentration of economic life and a high mobility of the population in those districts which stay busy for twenty-four hours a day. The lowest mean crime rates were found in Mokotów (3664). The next stage of statistical analysis of crime recorded by the police in Warsaw consists in the presentation of the territorial differentiation of crime in the areas of operation of the separate police stations. Differentiation of the crime rates was very high, ranging from 1,700 offences per 100 thousand of the population recorded at the 3rd station to 27,559 recorded at the 17th station (in Śródmieście district). At the same time, as was the case with crime analysed by city districts, a reverse trend of the changes in rates and intensity of crime could be found. In some areas which, admittedly, had the relatively lowest crime rates in 1992, there was a relatively high growth in crime as compared to 1991. In Śródmieście district, despite the drop in crime in 1992 as compared to 1991 (which was the highest at the 17th station ‒ by 31% and the lowest at the 26th station – by 8%) the crime rates per 100 thousand of the population proved among the highest. This may confirm the thesis as to “displacement” of crime. On the other hand, it may also result from different relations between the extent of real crime and that of recorded offences. What speaks for these latter conclusions are the results of regression and correlation analysis which manifest a significant correlation between the rates of recorded crime in general and offences against property: thefts of private property and breaking and entering of private buildings where the “dark numer” is high. Therefore, the distribution of crime in Warsaw is determined by offences against property where evaluation of the numer of undetected offences is particularly difficult. As follows from the police data, the clearance rate of crime in Warsaw was differentiated according to both type and site of the offence. The highest mean clearance rate was found in Ochota district (27.5%), and the lowest in Praga Północ (16.3%). The probability of successful detection was highest with respect to traffic offences (0.93) and lowest in cases of breaking and entering (0.05). Clearance rate was highly differentiated (57%) in the case of car burglaries. The relatively highest probability of detection was found in Wola district (0.16), the lowest ‒ in Żoliborz (0.033) and Śródmieście (0.038). The probability of detection of offences against persons in Warsaw in 1992 was about 0.6 (e.g. 60%), and against property – several per cent. The differentiation of both the dynamics and structure of crime in the separate districts of Warsaw and in areas of the separate police stations within the districts again confirms the thesis as to existence of areas that are particularly threatened with crime – the crime-generating areas. On the other hand, this differentiation suggests a large and indefinite numer of unrevealed or unrecorded offences. The present analysis, part of a study on the state of safety in Warsaw initiated by the Superintendent of Warsaw Police and the Major of Warsaw, confirmed the need for improving the data gathering system, securing the continuity of data, and the use of computer data carriers.