Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

39-61

Authors: Mary Corcoran

The pandemic presented a uniquely unrestricted bonanza in many countries for opportunistic profitmaking at the public expense. In the United Kingdom, this took the form of collusion between senior political figures and business associates in purchasing medical supplies which, allied to the suspension of procurement governance, led to irregular, even fraudulent, contracting practices. Analyses of corruption often stress the combination of system abuses by officials and ill-functioning governance as factors in undermining public trust. Whilst these held true in the case of procurement corruption in the UK, this article focuses on the relationships between populism and de democratising trends aimed at disarming critical opposition to elite misappropriation and profiteering in the context of a crisis. Operating under the cover of emergency pandemic planning, the UK government presides over historical levels of state facilitated misappropriation while largely deflecting political accountability or sanction from those responsible.

91-126

Authors: Zbigniew Lasocik

This article is devoted to the issue of awareness of human trafficking and forced labor among Poles. The analysis is based on the results of social opinion polls conducted in Poland between 1998 and 2020. Although there have been several such surveys, there is so far no summary or commentary on them in the Polish literature. There is extensive empirical material, however, some of the studies raise serious methodological doubts. Finally, interpretation of the results sometimes causes considerable controversy. In professional writing, the problem of social awareness of human trafficking has been discussed much less frequently than such issues as the scale of this phenomenon, the effectiveness of prosecution or the situation of the victims. The narrative axis of this article is Amitai Etzioniʼs concept of an active society. This author argues that a sense of community comes down to the development of optimal responses to emerging social needs. Therefore, questions have to be asked about whether Polish society perceives the problem of human trafficking as important, and whether it has developed the kind of readiness that guarantees that it will "deal" with it in the best possible way. In light of the data collected, and the analysis carried out, the proposed answer is decidedly negative. The article demonstrates that a low level of awareness from citizens became one of the factors that negatively affected the process of building an effective system of eliminating modern slavery in Poland. A poorly informed, passive, and most of all undemanding society turned out to be a “convenient” partner for the state apparatus, which never considered human trafficking to be one of its priorities. Even more, the state has almost completely neglected its duty to build a collective awareness of the danger of this crime, or to support societal responsibility for its victims.

151-194

Authors: Ewa Dawidziuk, Kamila Kotowska

The article describes the use of the Skype electronic communicator in maintaining contact between prisoners and their relatives. The data collected by the Office of the Polish Ombudsman shows that penitentiary units have appropriate the technical capabilities to use the discussed form of social communication. Online meetings of inmates with their families have gained particular importance during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The publication indicates the possibility of using electronic means of communication by convicts, as well as the difficulties in accessing these tools by remand prisoners. Attention was also paid to general access to websites by prisoners.

243-266

Authors: Paulina Wiktorska

The text includes a description and analysis of selected changes in the approach to controlling domestic violence, taking into account the latest legislative proposal. The text focuses on the most important, selected amendments and successively introduced institutions and procedures which on the one hand increase the scope of state interference in relations between close relatives, and on the other hand increase the possibility of persons affected by violence utilising the available protection. The individual amendments have aroused, and their proposed provisions are still arousing a great deal of controversy of a legal, social, cultural and ethical nature.

315-345

Authors: Dominik Wzorek

The aim of the research was to investigate which elements of actions of criminal trial participants lead to criminalizing offenses and labeling offenders as “criminals.” The research was based on labeling theory in criminology and Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis and his perspective of social role. In-depth interviews with professional lawyers and analysis of recordings of court hearings available on YouTube were conducted. The findings of the research project allow answering the question: how lawyers define the strategies for negotiating the status of a criminal during the criminal trial. There were distinguished five strategies: objectivization of opinions, the weight of arguments, “doubts creating,” referring to the authority, and highlighting professionalism.

375-397

Authors: Paweł Dziekański

In recent years, Poland has observed an increase in the number of people in pre-trial detention. At parallel, crime rates are not high and are on declining trend. There is therefore a tendency which defies the logical, natural justification that the number of pre-trial detentions should increase in line with the growth of crime, especially the most serious types of crimes. The article discusses purposes and functions of detention in Polish criminal procedure. The analysis of them indicates that the illegal use of non-procedural functions, which is facilitated by certain factors, may lead to overused pre-trial detention in Poland.

429-457

Authors: Karolina Trzeskowska-Kubasik

During the German occupation, the prison in Pińczów was the largest prison in the Kreishauptmannschaft Busko area. At the same time, the prison in Pińczów together with the Wełecki Forest near Busko-Zdrój was the largest place of execution of the inhabitants of Kreishauptmannschaft Busko. Its activity in 1939-1944 is poorly described in Polish historiography. There are also no articles about personnel losses in its territory. The goal of the article is to characterize prisoners from Pińczów and to discuss German crimes committed on its territory.

19-46

Authors: Katharine Bryant, Bernadette Joudo

This article will examine the efficacy of current programme services for adolescent girls at risk of forced labour through an analysis of Walk Free’s Promising Practices Database. The Database is a collection of evaluations of anti-slavery and counter-trafficking programmes since 2000, categorised by type of intervention, location of programme, and target population, among other terms. This article identifies what lessons can be learnt, if any, to both prevent and tackle the forced labour of adolescent girls, with a particular focus on the garment and textile industries. We examine a subset of the Promising Practices Database of 81 evaluations, where at least one component in programme design was targeted at adolescent girls. We find that, in line with other critiques of human trafficking research, most evaluations are disproportionately focussed on programmes tackling sex trafficking to the exclusion of other forms of forced labour. Based on two existing evaluations, and related programmes in the garment sector, we determine the importance of community-led, inclusive, rights-based awareness-raising and the need to tailor interventions specifically to the needs and life-stage of the target group.

75-96

Authors: Julia Muraszkiewicz

This article speaks to a world order where forced labour is in plain sight. The starting point for the crime and recruitment of victims of human trafficking is often on the street. Homeless persons and individuals who have recently left correctional institutions are approached and swiftly transported to countries of destination. There, again in plain sight, they are taken to legal and regulated recruitment agencies and are found jobs. In many instances, they are placed in factories, recycling plants, and warehouses. Although these jobs are legitimate, what happens behind the scenes is not: individuals working have no access to their wages, suffer psychological and physical abuse, threats, coercive control, and their documents are taken from them. These clear components of forced labour are perfectly illustrated in the plight of vulnerable polish men recruited and transported to the UK who were discovered in UK’s largest police investigation into forced labour: Operation Fort. This exposé investigates and explores three key points where intervention is needed: two related to the recruitment of certain subgroups – the targeting of homeless individuals and those with a relationship with the criminal justice system, and a third, where forced labour is facilitated through the use of legitimate recruitment agencies.

119-141

Authors: Szandra Windt

According to official criminal statistics, a total of 36 registered forced labour crimes were committed in Hungary between 2013 and 2019. Forced labour (Section 193 of the Criminal Code) was a separate statutory element in Hungary between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2020. In 2019, nearly 40 forced labour cases were analysed, the sociological and criminological characteristics of which are summarised and shown in this article following the statistical review. Based on the cases we examined, it can be said that the victim has alcohol problems, is homeless and unemployed, is in extremely poor health condition, has a low intellectual level and is elderly. In terms of their gender, there was a significant number of men among the victims of forced labour. Victims of forced labour and those crimes that were committed against them are even more hidden, even more difficult to detect and to prove than are acts of sexual exploitation. These people are a ‘hidden population’, statuses such as ‘subtenants’ or ‘accepted relatives’ obviously do not reveal the real situation to police officers arriving on the scene. It is possible that this situation prevails for years and is not brought to the authorities.

169-193

Authors: Sudarat Musikawong, Panida Rzonca

There is a need for a transnational framework that would redefine labour trafficking in terms of debt bondage and challenge the privileges of legal contracts at the expense of migrant workers’ human and labour rights. We argue that anti-trafficking legislation in the US and Thailand is expansive in definition, but its application is too restrictive to deliver justice to the victims. The debt-labour industry easily becomes a form of transnational labour trafficking. We examine Thailand as an origin and destination country for labour trafficking through two cases involving the US and Thailand though a Marxist and liberal analysis that considers critical race theory. The limitations in which these cases could not achieve full justice represent the challenges for transnational labour rights for noncitizen migrant workers. We examine the Global Horizons agricultural labour case, 2002–2012, and Thailand’s fishing sector, which led to its Tier 3 ranking in the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. This report was used in international campaigns to pressurise corporate industries and retailers to change their code of conduct, necessitating considerations of the effectiveness of supply chain responsibility.

223-247

Authors: Vernon Murray, Holly Shea, Julia Solin

Using data from the Counter Trafficking Data Collabourative (CTDC; N = 9,900), we developed breakdowns of labour trafficking victims worldwide, for two countries (the USA and Russia), and by job category (e.g. ‘domestic worker’). These tables refer to the frequency with which each of nine victim types occur, based on their motivation to participate in a trafficking arrangement. For instance, ‘Tricked and Trapped’ comprises a large segment of US labour trafficking victims. Such victims willingly begin jobs, but are subsequently forced to continue. Based on attitude-behaviour and marketing theory, the intervention framework prescribes specific interventions for each victim type. These include ‘information sharing,’ ‘radical and moderate confrontation,’ ‘economic and noneconomic rewards,’ and more. The results of our study indicate that labour trafficking victim types can vary substantially by region and job category. For instance, Russia’s highest percentage of labour trafficking victims hold construction jobs as ‘Enlightened Apostates’ (e.g. those tricked by a friend) while most US victims perform ‘unspecified’ work as ‘Trapped and Robbed’ (i.e. minors and coerced adults) victims. Thus, the interventions prescribed for them will vary.

271-294

Authors: Zbigniew Lasocik

Forced labour is a social phenomenon which is difficult to comprehend and accept due to its exceptional nature. The existing legal definition is not very helpful. This article reflects on a different approach to understanding forced labour and a different operational definition of the phenomenon. The starting point is to look at forced labour from the perspective of social pragmatism and symbolic interactionism by referring to the humanistic coefficient, a concept developed one hundred years ago. Using the experience of Poland in unsuccessful attempts to deal with forced labour, but also referring to global experiences in that field, this article attempts to define the phenomenon in the context of work in general. The key question that arises here is this that if work is a noble and socially visible phenomenon, how is it then that forced labour is almost completely invisible, not only to people, but also to law enforcement? It is suggested in this text that forced labour, burdened with a strong social taboo, is hidden behind a façade of the nobility of labour. At the end of the article, there is a proposal for a new analytical scheme with which the phenomenon can be described in a completely different language than that of criminal justice.