Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

7

Authors: Witold Klaus, Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska

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27-47

Authors: Andrzej Uhl

The most prominent sentencing theories, also known as justifications for punishment, were developed long before white-collar crime entered mainstream criminology. Not surprisingly, the literature still focusses on the phenomenology of white-collar crime rather than on the issues of punishment. As a growing number of respectable offenders face criminal prosecution or even incarceration, the application of traditional sentencing rationales proves problematic in practical, ethical, and terminological terms. The article first explains how the debate on punishing upper-world offenders in Europe is inhibited by the offence-based nomenclature of economic crime or ‘collaring the crime, not the criminal’. Thereafter, a review and discussion of relevant English-language literature on the subject is offered, leaving open some questions as to its applicability to the Central-eastern European context. White-collar offenders were traditionally viewed as the perfect target for general deterrence, yet the body of evidence challenges this hypothesis. The theory of positive general prevention seems promising with regard to reinforcing business ethics and counteracting the spiral effect. It is hardly clear what the rehabilitation of middle-class convicts should mean in practice, while incapacitation is reinvented as business debarment and the loss of licences. There is often a glaring discrepancy between retributive and preventive ends in white-collar cases, which also features the political dimension of class inequalities in the criminal justice system. A short excursus provides insight into neoliberal criticisms of punishing white-collar offenders, revealing its unintentional similarities to penal abolitionism. Finally, empirical findings on subjects relevant to punishment theories, such as fair sentencing, public attitudes, and the effectiveness of deterrence, are reviewed with special attention given to Central and Eastern European research.

67-98

Authors: Stanisław Mordwa, Patrycja Laskowska

The article presents the spatial distribution of environmental crime predictors, valuation of the impact of these factors on local security conditions and spatiotemporal patterns of crime within space of the Stare Bałuty housing estate in Łódź. The purpose of this study was to recognize the impact of spatial distribu-tion of crime predictors on the pattern of urban crime. The main conclusion from this research is that the city space is diverse both in terms of identified crime predictors and the sites of committed offences. It turned out that the distribution patterns of these two phenomena overlap to a large extent, and that there is a tendency to concentration of crime in the immediate surroundings of the identified crime predictors.

133-174

Authors: Łukasz Wieczorek, Zbigniew Lasocik

The article is based on research carried out as part of the international research project ‘Demand for Sexual Exploitation in Europe (DESIRE)’, covering Croatia, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. The project, financed by the European Commission, was implemented in 2017–2018. The purpose of this publication is to discuss one of the aspects of this research, namely, the functioning of various forms of sexual services other than prostitution. In this context we focussed our study on such phenomena as erotic massage, phone sex, peep shows, or ‘sponsorship’. The starting point of our considerations is the question of whether some forms of satisfying someone’s sexual needs can lead to the exploitation of those who do it. That is why we first present a detailed description of all these phenomena, while in the description we take into account the similarities and differences between the discussed forms and typical prostitution. As one of the goals of the DESIRE project was to establish the relationship between legal regulations and the scale of the sex industry, we analyse the legal and sociopolitical aspects of providing sexual services other than prostitution in the four countries mentioned above. The selection of these four countries is not accidental, because they represent four models of regulating the provision of sexual services that currently function in Europe: from full penalisation (Croatia) to full legalisation (the Netherlands). On the other hand, we looked at these alternative forms of commercial sex from the perspective of human trafficking. Answering the key question of this article, we attempted to indicate the situations and elements of sexual services other than prostitution in which the persons providing them may be exposed to sexual abuse or trafficking.

207-238

Authors: Maciej Witold Bernasiewicz, Monika Noszczyk-Bernasiewicz

The article discusses the extent and trends of juvenile delinquency in the US and Poland. The text also deals with various types of statistics and databases that we can use when describing the phenomenon of crime. Despite different demographic trends, in both countries we are observing a downward trend in the broadly understood juvenile delinquency, which is considered to be the aggregate of delinquent acts and status offenses. In the USA, in 1980-2017 the number of arrests decreased by 59.8%, while in Poland the decrease in the number of delinquents - taking into account the period 2000-2018 - amounted to 30%. The most significant impact on the decreasing level of juvenile delinquency in both countries had a decrease in the number of property crimes.

313-336

Authors: Sebastian Lizińczyk

In the activities carried out towards prisoners, concern for their safety is the key role in the implemented system of pre-suicidal prevention. The manuscript describes a list of risk factors identified in the literature that may be important in the correct estimation of the suicide risk assessment. Therefore, the preventive procedures developed in the polish prison system, are focused on monitoring and early identification of suicidal risk factors for inmates. Diagnosis and classification of inmates to the risk group triggers a series of preventive actions taken in prison. Their implementation contributes to limiting the occurrence of the phenomenon of suicides in penitentiary isolation. The subject of the research described in the manuscript is the characteristics of successful suicides in isolation in 2015–2019. The analysis of data from the group of suicides (N = 114) in terms of suicidal risk indicators allowed to identify many aspects of the suicidal process in penitentiary isolation in Poland. Many presented variables were estimated, including temporality of the phenomenon, selected penitentiary characteristics of suicides and data on responsibility for the occurrence of the event. The obtained results provide useful data that may be used to improve the diagnosis system and early identification of prisoners at risk of suicide.

23-44

Authors: Milana Salmanovna Dikaeva

For many years the Russian Federation has had one of the highest numbers of people incarcerated in penal institutions (per 100,000 population). As of 1 January 2020, there were 523,928 people in prison. An analysis of the legislation and the practice of its application reveals that the main trend of modern Russian penal policy is for stricter penalties, longer prison terms, and inefficient use of alternative punishments. The ongoing trend of humanising and liberalising criminal justice remains virtually invisible and suppressed by a repressive bias, which ultimately prevents it from significantly influencing the overall direction of state policy in this area.

75-96

Authors: Oliver Bacanovic, Angelina Stanojoska

Yugoslavia’s disintegration in the 1990s resulted in the differentiation of five different countries, meaning the building of five different criminal legal systems with many similarities at that time, but also with differences in the years to come. The Republic of North Macedonia brought its first Criminal Code in 1996, decriminalising some of the previous crimes connected to socialist system norms, and criminalising activities characteristic of capitalist social systems. From its basic draft, the Criminal Code had been changed twenty-eight times by 2018 in accordance with crime changes and flows, and societal changes. Using crime statistics published by the Republic of North Macedonia’s State Statistical Office in an annual publication, ‘Perpetrators of Crimes’, this paper’s goal will be to present the trends in crime volume and dynamics, the changes in the breakdown of crimes as result of decriminalisation and criminalisation, and the possible future challenges and changes, as well as the trends and changes to the state’s criminal policy, the frequent use of imprisonment as a sanction, and the very rare use of alternative measures apart from probation. The authors will use the comparative method, basic statistics, and content analysis in the general overview of crime volume and dynamics, crime structure, and structural changes. Such an analysis can help in tackling the most important chronological points during the period in question and connect them with political, social, security, and economic challenges for the country.

117-138

Authors: Dagmara Woźniakowska-Fajst

The ongoing research conducted at the Department of Criminology at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences into juvenile delinquency resulted in establishing a database of persons who appeared before family and juvenile court for a punishable offence before 2000. The database enabled the continuation of research into the fate of juvenile girls, including and offered a unique insight into the lives of those individuals who continued to break the law in their adulthood. Court files studies were the basis of the analysis of juvenile girls’ offending at the time. Since then, the convictions of the juveniles in question has been verified three times: in 2011 (, in 2016 (for the period 2011-2015) and in 2018 (for the years 2016 and 2017). 836 juvenile girls remained that qualified for the research covering the period 2017-2019. From among this group 167 females were convicted of a criminal offence as adults, which is every fifth juvenile female in the study. For the sake of the research the research team decided to do in-depth research on the group of women that committed at least three offences in their adulthood, for which they had at least two convictions. Such established framework yielded 64 records (7.7% of the total juveniles in the research).

163-183

Authors: Magdalena Grzyb

One can often hear Polish politicians saying there is no violence against women in Poland, since Polish men respect their women and women hold a strong position in Polish culture. The conviction rates for domestic abuse in Poland are indeed low, though the attrition rates are high. Every year, for approximately 75,000 registered cases of domestic violence, there are roughly 10,000 convictions. Most of the prison sentences are conditionally suspended. Protective orders or other punitive measures are seldom handed down. There is a visible reluctance on the part of the criminal justice system to punish and correct domestic abusers. One of the reasons is that domestic abuse provisions in the Polish Penal Code (Article 207 of the Polish Penal Code from 1997) criminalises a very different behaviour than is defined in the Counteracting Family Violence Act from 2005. Another, possibly even greater, reason is the culture of sentencing (both in general and of domestic abuse) within the Polish judiciary and the very strong conservatism of Polish decision-makers and society. The protection of family values by legislators and the judiciary is often enforced at the expense of the victims’ right to life and to a life free from violence. This article discusses the Polish system for preventing domestic violence, which was set up in 2005 and the construction and jurisprudence of crime described in Article 207 of the Polish Penal Code. In particular, the question of culpability raises many problems when it comes to prosecution. First, we must compare Article 207 with the definition of ‘family violence’ specified in the Counteracting Family Violence Act and the Istanbul Convention. Then, I will explain how such an understanding and interpretation of Article 207 translates into the dynamics of sentencing and penal decision-making and the virtual ineffectiveness of both penal provisions (the lack of deterrent effect) and the system of counteracting family violence designed by lawmakers.

207-224

Authors: Gabriel Oancea, Mihai Ioan Micle

This article presents the context that led to the establishment of the probation system in Romania in relation to some reforms of the criminal sanctioning system. These reforms were necessary because of the difficulties faced by the penitentiary system before and after 1989, as well as the need to align the administration of penalties with the requirements imposed by the country’s accession to the Council of Europe and the European Union. Eighteen years after the creation of the probation system within the Ministry of Justice, it can be stated that this endeavour constitutes a success, but it is absolutely necessary to continue the efforts towards consolidating it. In addition, these measures have to be accompanied by a change of vision in relation to how other community members can be involved in the process of social reintegration of individuals who have broken the law.

253-269

Authors: Jan Váně, Lukáš Dirga

The prison system in the Czech Republic has been carrying out a reform process since the end of the communist regime, and has gone through more than 30 years of transformation, based on an effort to make it a modern European correctional system. Part of this change is the transformation of pastoral care, which is presented as one of the key pillars of penitentiary (and also postpenitentiary) care in the Czech Republic. This text is focused on the historically changing role of prison chaplains in the process of release preparation and rehabilitation of inmates in post-communist Czech prisons. Our aim is to compare official declarations, which are reproduced in written documents, with everyday practice from the perspectives of three different groups within the prison environment. This study is based on ethnographic research conducted in Czech prisons for men. The data corpus includes qualitative interviews with selected actors of the prison world (prison chaplains, inmates, and representatives of prison management), material gathered through observations inside prisons, and an analysis of the documentation on the Czech penitentiary system. We have found that although prison chaplains have become an integral part of the Czech prison world, their position is still specific in comparison with the rest of prison staff. In our study, we will focus on the historical evolution of the position of prison chaplains within the organisational structure of prisons, the nature of their work with inmates, and interactions with other prison actors.