Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

5-9

Authors: Konrad Buczkowski, Beata Czarnecka-Dzialuk, Witold Klaus, Anna Kossowska, Irena Rzeplińska, Monika Szulecka, Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska, Paulina Wiktorska, Dagmara Woźniakowska-Fajst, Dobrochna Wójcik

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53-113

Authors: Ewa Habzda-Siwek

The aim of the research presented in the article is to show the amount, structureand dynamics of the offences against life and health that are defined in Chapter XIXof the Polish Penal Code 1997. The article offers an analysis of the data on the of fencesagainst life and health based on the publicly available statistics for the years 1999–2016.In the analysed period, two main trends relating to the amount of crime shouldbe identified. The first, encompassing the years 1999 to 2003, was an upward trend,followed by a downward trend that accelerated in the second decade of this century.In fact, since 2011 there has been a general, spectacular and significant drop of crimein Poland, also including offences against life and health.For the purpose of the analysis, offences against life and health are divided intofour main categories: homicide, assault or battery, bodily injury and other crimes(not included in the above-mentioned categories). Based on the offences recorded bythe police in the years 1999–2003, the number of all offences against life and healthexceeded 35,000 in 2003. Then, the number of such offences was relatively stable (about31,000-32,000 per year) and has decreased to about 18,000 since 2011.Generally, over the analysed period, the number of offences in three of four catego -ries: homicide, assault and battery and bodily injuries, has shrunk several times. The onlyexception to the general trend relates to the offences under Art. 160 of Criminal Code(defined as “exposing a human being to an immediate danger of loss of life or bodilyinjury or impairment of health”) that is invoked, among others, in cases of parentalneglect, distribution of designer drugs or even as allegations of medical malpractice.The significant drop in crime during the second decade of the 21st century asksfor an explanation. The first possible reason for this is that a crime drop has beenobserved in many countries, seems to be a common and international phenomenonand, as such, it also applies to Poland. The second explanation, probably the mostimportant one, is that the crime drop in Poland has been due to the systemic changesin the recording of crimes.First of all, in 2013 a new police information system was introduced, which led tosome problems with making it compatible with the old one. In parallel, in the same year,a substantial change in the recording of juvenile delinquency was adopted. Accordingto the new methodology, offences committed by juveniles are recorded by the policeonly after juvenile courts confirm the fact that a juvenile has indeed committed a crime.The problem is that there is no rule that would oblige juvenile courts to give suchinformation back to the police. It could possibly have a strong impact on the statisticsof crime, especially regarding assault and battery and bodily injuries, as juveniles usedto be a significant group of individuals suspected of such crimes. To make it clear,the data about ascertained crimes in Poland do not include punishable acts committedby juveniles.Furthermore, the investigation and proceedings carried out by the prosecutor’soffices and entrusted to other competent bodies than the police are not includedin the official police data. It all means that, since 2013, the range of the police data hasbeen substantially limited and does not reflect incidence of crime in full.The third possible reason for the falling number of crimes is the effect of thedemographic processes. It should also be taken into account that the populationof adolescents in Poland is currently at the lowest level since World War II.The article discusses four main categories of the offences covered by Chapter XIXof the Penal Code.The category “Homicide” is not a simple one. It includes manslaughter (Art. 148§ 1), murder (Art. 148 § 2 describes different forms of such felony: killing withparticular cruelty, in connection with hostage taking, rape or robbery, for motivesdeserving particular reprobation, and also with the use of explosives). The PolishCriminal Code also has provisions relating to heat of passion manslaughter justifiedby the circumstances (Art. 148 § 4 of the Penal Code). According to the data recordingby the police, in the analysed period the number of homicide cases has decreased bymore than 50%!“Bodily injury” is a very broad category that also covers causing serious bodilyharm, which includes, among others, deprivation of sight, hearing, speech or the ability to procreate, or inflicting a serious crippling injury, an incurable or prolonged illness,an illness dangerous to life, a permanent mental illness, a permanent total or substantialincapacity to work in an occupation, or a permanent serious bodily disfigurementor deformation (Art. 156 § 1 of the Penal Code), stipulating a heavier penalty if theconsequence of an act is death (Art. 156 § 3 of the Penal Code) than for causinga bodily injury or an impairment to health other than specified in Art. 156 Penal Code(Art. 157 § 1 of the Penal Code). If the bodily injury or an impairment of health doesnot last longer than seven days, prosecution will be brought on a private charge. Overthe analysed period, most of these cases were qualified under Art. 157 of the PenalCode. The total number of bodily injuries has been slowly decreasing over the analysedperiod, reaching about 60% of the initial amount.“Assault and battery” (Ar. 158 and Art. 159 of the Penal Code) is also a verybroad category and includes brawling (the perpetrator who participates in a brawlis responsible for the complicity in the act that means an immediate danger to life ormay lead to a bodily injury) and battery, when the role of the victims and the offendersare clearly determined. Since 2011, the police data have shown a spectacular dropin the number of assault and battery – to one third of previously recorded cases. It isundoubtedly a side effect of the change in the algorithm of recording punishable actscommitted by juveniles.The conclusion is that the changes in the methodology of recording ascertainedcrime by the police have limited the range of available data on crime. Therefore, interpretingthe data on offences against life and health has now been made more difficult asthe punishable acts of juveniles are no longer included in the police information system.In such a situation, possible ways of gathering data on crime and their interpretation should be reconsidered.Moreover, there is an urgent need to develop and conduct criminological researchon offences against life and health.

153-219

Authors: Justyna Włodarczyk-Madejska

The article analyses the cooperation of juvenile judges with supporting institutionsin the adjudication process on the basis of the research project conducted at theDe partment of Criminology of the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academyof Sciences in 2016, entitled: “Cooperation of juvenile courts with other institutionsin the application educational and corrective measures”. The aim of the research projectwas to examine how juvenile courts practically implement the assumptions resultingfrom the Act on Proceeding in Juvenile Cases, especially its Article 32b, which providesthat juvenile judges have a duty to collect information about the juveniles and theirenvironment in the course of the proceedings – directly or indirectly (by the supportinginstitutions). The last of them have been defined as an organised team of institutionsthat cooperate with each other in order to achieve common aims. Cooperation hasbeen defined as “a type of social process to achieve a common aims”. In the courseof the project, two kinds of research were conducted. The first of them included nationalsurveys addressed to juvenile judges, professional family probation officers, expertsfrom diagnostic teams, the second – individual in-depth interviews with selectedrepresentatives of these groups. The national surveys comprised: 162 juvenile judges,556 professional family probation officers and 177 experts from diagnostic teams, whichaccounted for, respectively, 16%, 28% and 33% of total population for each of thesegroups. The individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 respondents,10 in each group.On the basis of the research, it can be assumed that, in general, the cooperationof juvenile judges with professional family probation officers and diagnostic teamsis good. This is an average value. It means that, in some courts, cooperation is more efficient than in others. The main evidence that provides knowledge about juvenilesis the environmental interview; 70% of judges declared that the order regarding thepreparation of an interview is issued in each case. None of them chose this categoryof answers in the question about the diagnostic opinion. Both the national survey andthe interviews demonstrate the lack of interdependence between the type of case andthe frequency of the order to prepare an environmental interview. This dependencyoccurs in relation to the diagnostic opinion. The probability of commissioning the pre -paration of such evidence is higher in cases in which the court intends to rule anisolation educational measure or corrective measure. There are different practicesof asking questions to the supporting institution. The questions, especially aboutthe cause and degree of demoralisation (88%), suggestions about the measure andthe direction of further impacts (86%), and personality characteristics of the juveniles(79.6%), are more often addressed to the diagnostic teams. The conducted researchconfirmed a high degree of convergence of the judgments with the recommendationsof the supporting institutions (an average 78.5% with diagnostic teams and 54.7% withprofessional family probation officers). Juvenile judges were asked to evaluate evidencecontaining information about the juveniles. The judges recognised the diagnosticopinion as the most helpful evidence in the decision-making process (87.7%); whereas85.8% of them also underlined the importance of the environmental interview. Thereis no doubt about nearly the same perception of the purpose of the functioning ofthe supporting institutions by the respondents of all the three surveyed groups. Theyagreed that these institutions are necessary and the juvenile justice system could notexist without them. These institutions provide information allowing conducting com -plete diagnoses of the juveniles and their environment, and thus determining themost needed measure; as such, they help to make the decision on the applicationof the most appropriate measure in each case. The article also includes theoreticalanalysis and analysis of the applicable regulations. Each of them confirms the existenceof assumptions and premises to create a “model system of proceeding with juveniles.”

263-325

Authors: Monika Płatek

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combatting violence againstwomen and domestic violence (further: CETS210, Istanbul Convention, Anti-violenceConvention) became part of the Polish legal system on 1 August 2015. The IstanbulConvention incorporates a specific legal provision on rape, namely Art. 36 CETS210.It states that the Parties should take the necessary legislative or other measures toensure that the intentional conduct described in Art. 36 CETS210 is criminalised.Article 36.1a CETS210 states that rape takes place when engaging in non-consensualvaginal, anal or oral penetration of a sexual nature of the body of another person withany bodily part or object.Rape is respectively regulated in Art. 19 7 of the Polish Criminal Code 1997 (further,k.k.). However, the context of Art. 197 k.k. significantly differs from the wordingof Art. 36 CETS. Whereas Art. 36 CETS protects freedom, autonomy and sexualautonomy of the person, Art. 197 k.k. protects merely sexual freedom combined withprotecting the social customs. In order to establish the presence of rape, one needs toprove the presence of violence, psychological aggression and/or deception. Protectingsocial customs implies an additional burden because it allows evaluating the behaviourof the victim rather than the one of the perpetrator. The Istanbul Convention is orientedon eager elimination of violence against women and domestic violence. Therefore, itestablishes that the Parties should take the necessary measures to promote changesin the social and cultural patterns and behaviour of women and men with a view toeradicating prejudice, customs, traditions and all other practices which are based onthe idea of the inferiority of women or stereotyped roles for women and men (Art.12.1 CETS210). It is within this line that rape regulation should follow.The question that is tackled in this article is as follows: to what extent doesthe difference in the legal description of the act of “rape”, and the difference in protectedvalues by legal provision in Art. 36 CETS210 and in Art. 197 k.k. make an ontologicaland normative difference? Are they not possible to be reconciled? Or, is the meredifference in the words describing what “rape” not an obstacle to achieving the goalsexpected by Art. 36 CETS210?The problem is not an artificial one especially in view of the fact that the Polishlegislators did not amend the text of Art. 197 k.k. upon the ratification of CETS210. It would suggest that the Polish legislator was of the opinion that there is no definitedifference between Art. 36 CETS210 and Art. 197 k.k. The text examines what happen eswhen an old term acquires new meaning.Is Art. 197 k.k. despite the lack of amendments filling the value required by Art.36 CETS210? Or, is the sameness expected by the Polish legislator false? By demonstratingvital differences in the protected values and the action required establish ingthe presence of the rape, I call for amendments to fulfill the state legal obligations toobserve the Istanbul Convention.The article deals with the ontological difference in the legal concept behind the textof Art. 36 CETS210 and Art. 197 k.k. While Art. 197 k.k. is built on the concept of sexualfreedom, Art. 36 CETS is developed on the concept of sexual autonomy. I elaborateon that.The changes in the protected values incorporated in Art. 36 CETS210 lead toabandoning the concept of sexual freedom established in Art. 197 k.k. and adoptingthe concept of sexual autonomy. While the former concept of sexual freedom, asin Art. 197 k.k., uses violence, psychological aggression and/or deception to establishthe presence of rape, for sexual autonomy as defined in Art. 36 CETS210 the line iscrossed where the consent was not present. While sexual freedom limits freedom to torefusal, sexual autonomy demands the presence of consent. Not violence, aggressionor deception, but the lack of consents matters.The term and concept of sexual autonomy was first explored by the EuropeanCourt of Human Rights in the landmark European Court of Human Right (furtherECHR) judgment M.C. v. Bulgaria (No. 39272/98). The case is thoroughly analysedto further illuminate the difference between the two concepts behind the differentapproaches to defining “rape”.The article, however, starts with an in-depth introduction to the goal of the IstanbulConvention, which is to place the issue of rape in a proper perspective. Apart froma criminological analysis of the concept of rape, the article discusses the values protectedby, respectively, Art. 36 CETS210 and Art. 197 k.k. and compares the similarities andactual differences. A similar examination is related to the description of “rape” in Art.36 CETS and Art. 197 k.k. Last but not least, the subject is evaluated, taking the Polishcriminal dogmas into consideration.The conclusion of the examination leaves no room for assuming that Art. 197 k.k.fulfills the requirement stipulated by Art. 36 CETS210. It is, therefore necessary, toamend Art. 197 k.k.

371-400

Authors: Jadwiga Królikowska

This article presents selected results of a legal and sociological research project entitled“Penal cultures. Cultural context of criminal policy and criminal law reforms. Legal,penological, historical, sociological, and cultural (anthropological) analysis of criminallaw reforms in Poland against the background of European and world trends”, conductedin 2012-2014 on a sample of 160 Polish judges. The research was carried out usingthe questionnaire method supplemented with in-depth interviews with 12 judges.The questionnaire was sent by email to all the presidents of district, regional, andappellate courts in Poland with a request to pass it to their judges. The questionnaire wasaccompanied by a recommendation letter from the Vice-Rector for Scientific Researchat the University of Warsaw with the information about the research unit, that is aboutthe Professor G. Rejman Division of Culturally Integrated Legal and Social Studiesand the European Centre for Penological Studies at the University of Warsaw. Thequestionnaire was either sent back in bulk from individual courts, or the respondentssent it back individually by post or email to the university address provided.The punishment phenomenon was examined in a processual approach. Theresearchers adopted the hypothesis that criminal judges were the first link in thisprocess and knew more about punishment and punishing as social and legal phenomena than the general public. The presented research refers thematically to the studiescarried out by Bronisław Wróblewski and Witold Świda before World War II, reportedin their book Sędziowski wymiar kary w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej. Ankieta [The judiciarysentencing of punishment in the Republic of Poland. A Questionnaire], publishedin Vilnius in 1939. Similarly to those studies, the present research asks questions aboutthe determinants of the judiciary dimension of punishment, but it emphasises morestrongly the cultural, philosophical and moral dimensions of punishment attitudesdisplayed in sentencing.The statements of the respondents show a varied l evel of the judges’ knowledge aboutmatters concerning the socio-cultural and psychological aspects of punishment. Theyalso reveal a strong legal orientation of views and remain within the set of notions andtheories focused on law. Similarly to the Vilnius pre-war studies, the judges’ statementsshow a strong formative influence of lawyers’ education curricula implemented at alllevels of education.The results of the research carried out in 2012-2014 illuminate the judges’ viewson the goals and functions of punishment and punishing. They show the declaredhierarchy of the most important variables defining professional decisions regardingthe sentences imposed by the judges. They show the influence of systemic and culturalvariables on the professional attitudes and motives of the judges’ decisions in this matter.The judges’ statements on the effectiveness of penalties in individual and generalprevention are generally subdued. Although these factors are taken into account inthe process of sentencing, there is no deep conviction about their high impact. It issignificant that the research shows a clear distancing of the judges from the assumptionthat they may be subservient to influences from their superiors, scholarly authorities,public opinion or the decisions of colleagues in similar matters. Independence isdeclared by judges to be an important feature of their professional ethos and appliesto all sources of influence. On the other hand, what the judges indicate as variablesrelevant to their decisions on sentencing are the personal and family conditions ofthe perpetrator and their potential for rehabilitation, which may occur as a resultof criminal sentencing and end the state of impunity. The respondents also indicatethat the fairness of a sentence and the doing of justice to the offender is a significantaspect of the court’s action.Although the research procedure in this case was strongly grounded in empiricism,this was not its main distinguishing feature – it was the conducting of research inthe culture of methodological and theoretical integration of the empirical material.It makes it possible to deduce a complex structure of the researched process andto undertake an analysis explaining many more variables than would appear in thedisciplinary mono analysis.

431-458

Authors: Małgorzata Szwejkowska

In its introduction, the article characterises - in a most comprehensible way - themain objectives of criminal sanctions and their role in preventing crime, according tothe most commonly expressed opinions on the subject from American scholars. It isfollowed by a brief history of assessing the risk of committing an offence in the UnitedStates in recent decades. The risk assessment process was developed before World WarII as a tool to predict possible recidivism in the case of inmates released on parole, butit has been in more common use since 1980s. While the “What works?” movementinitially emerged in the United States, one needs to remember the publication of Robert Martinso’s report that created the “Nothing works” (concerning prison rehabilitation)doctrine. It aided the justification of severe changes in punitive prison policies inthe 1970s that continued well into the 1990s, with the slogans “tough on crime, toughon the causes of crime” being more prominent. It took more than a decade to reestablishsome hope in prison rehabilitation programmes and allow the paradigm shiftsto happen – from the retribution “being tough on offenders” policy to more creativeapproaches towards offenders. By constructive approaches to working with offenders,one means the use of effective methods and techniques to alter criminal behaviourof inmates to prevent their possible relapse into crime (crime prevention).The main goal of the article is to present the most fundamental system in the UScriminal justice system that is most commonly applied nowadays: the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model and its principles to offender assessment. The aforementionedprinciples were laid down by Canadian scholars, Donald Arthur Andrews andJames Bonta. In that model, “risk” means the identification of specific factors thatare associated with recidivism (in general, depending on a specific crime, e.g. sexualoffenders or offenders who committed violent crimes). Andrews and Bonta argue thata number of factors need to be considered in any comprehensive theory of criminalbehaviour, including biological or neurological issues, inheritance, temperamentand social and cultural factors, while also noting that criminal behaviour is a multifactorialissue. “Need” assesses criminogenic needs and targets them in prison treatmentprogrammes for elimination, while “responsivity” intends to maximise the offender’sability to learn how to combat possible recidivism through rehabilitative intervention,providing cognitive behavioural treatment – with the said intervention being tailoredto the learning style, motivation, abilities and strengths of the offender.Risk assessment is applied during different stages of the criminal procedure: beforesentencing and during the period of time when the criminal sanction is executed, i.e.while serving a custodial sentence. It must be noted that, in the US justice system, judgesare not the only people obliged to assess the potential risk of an offender relapsinginto crime in the future. Prison officers are also tasked with such assessment. Throughthe application of the RNR model, it is possible for the prison staff to divide inmatesinto specific groups, depending on security levels and adequate treatment programmes.In that case, the assessment tools based on the RNR model not only allow a predictionof a possible relapse into crime, but also a proper allocation of convicts to rehabilitationprogrammes provided within prisons. A convict undergoes an evaluation before andafter the treatment. Such evaluations are imposed on most prisoners, so performingthem does have an impact on the financial and human resources of a given penitentiaryunit.The most important question, “What works in prison?” is answered by the majorityof scholars through propositions of providing cognitive and behavioural skill programmesto the convicts. They have clear criteria to ensure that objectives, methods andapplication of rehabilitation programmes correspond with the needs of criminaloffenders. The conclusion of the research is meant to prove that providing offenders with such treatment (based upon the RNR model) may have a positive effect on re -ducing the risk of relapse into crime in the future. However, the appropriate methodsof treatment are based not only on psychotherapy (or, sometimes, on pharmacologicaltreatment), but also on education, vocational training, personal development, strengtheningself-control mechanisms and improving interpersonal skills.

495-522

Authors: Anna Matczak

Restorative justice is a complex and multi-faceted concept, the introduction of whichdoes not happen in a socio-political and economic vacuum. Every society engageswith restorative justice in its own distinctive way as it is the society – lay people – thatis always on the receiving end of restorative solutions. In this article, I draw on mydoctoral research that explores qualitatively how a small number of Polish peopleunderstand punishment and justice, and how their narratives inform the viabilityof restorative approaches to justice in Poland. In other words, I propose to considera macro-sociological perspective, and how lay people’s understanding of punishmentand justice should be seen as an avenue by which to explore certain preconditions forthe viability of restorative justice.Poland’s socialist past, change of the political regime, post-communist “accession”to the international community in the West and a high level of religiosity (among manyother factors) make Poland a fascinating object of study that can, at the same time,offer insights about restorative justice in other societies. Restorative justice, introducedin the form of victim-offender mediation, was part of the post-1989 political ambitionsto change the Polish penal landscape and join the international community in the West.There were a number of forces behind the establishment of restorative justice in Poland.Given that the concept was introduced at a time when the Polish society was dealingwith the socialist legacy and creating a new democratic reality, it was also hoped thatmediation could serve as a fast-track remedy and act as an ancillary mechanism toreduce the sudden spike in court workloads after the fall of communism. In the caseof Poland, it seems that the exceptionally limited interest in mediation and the paucityof anticipated outcomes of victim-offender mediation is the problem. In order toexplore the viability of restorative justice in the Polish context, one must thereforelook beyond the legal basis and formal logistics which have been already in place formany years.My research opens up new debates on the viability of restorative justice, and thisarticle in particular fleshes out the nature of the participants’ perceptions of victimoffendermediation. In this article, I first briefly introduce the Polish model of victimoffendermediation. I then discuss the nature of the initial responses to mediationbased on the participants’ knowledge of, support for, and any experience of, victimoffendermediation. This is followed by the discussion on how the participants’ viewson mediation were articulated in the shadow of the Polish criminal justice system.Next, I explore why the participants viewed mediation as a business-like encounterand, finally, I explore the participants’ perceptions of apology – something that cameup as one of the most interesting findings of the study.The aim of this paper is to argue that the viability of restorative justice should beapproached as a process that is influenced by broader socio-economic, political andeven linguistic factors. Although the Polish model of victim-offender mediation wasinspired by the restorative justice concept, the narratives of my lay participants suggesta number of socio-cultural obstacles to the further development of restorative justicein Poland. Despite a limited knowledge of victim-offender mediation among the studyparticipants, it is clear that support for mediation is negotiated and conditional.Although victim-offender mediation was mainly perceived not as a punishment, therole and purpose of this practice was discussed against the background of the Polishcriminal justice system. Although the relationship might be defined as “uneasy” (seeShapland et al. 2006), restorative justice, since its conception, has been interwoven withthe two. One of restorative justice’s central hopes was to establish an alternative systemof crime resolution that would eliminate the infliction of pain. However, the trajectoryof restorative justice solutions in many countries demonstrates that the functioningof a majority of them is dependent on criminal justice agencies. Given the close andinseparable relationship between the two, I argue in my research that the ways in whichlay people perceive the criminal justice institutions affect their perceptions of alternativeconflict resolutions. Then, as it emerged in my fieldwork, the study participants’ perceptionof harm suggests that mediation might be seen as an avenue to focus onthe financial side of the reparation, and as result might achieve something other thanrestorative goals. The narratives of my study participants also explore the difficultyof acknowledging apology as a genuine element of the restorative encounter. Thiscould be due to looking at apology through the lens of court apology, sociolinguistic or cultural reasons. John Braithwaite in his book Restorative Justice and ResponsiveRegulation (2002) rightly indicated that “we are still learning how to do restorativejustice well” (p. 565). Nevertheless, the question whether a perfect restorative justiceprogramme is ever possible remains open.

535-560

Authors: Anna Szuba-Boroń

Twenty years of personal experience in crime-related field that furthermore inspiredreflection on the reasons of crime made a Polish writer, Sergiusz Piasecki, interestingfor forensic sciences. His life started with a turbulent and difficult childhood, hematured among the turmoil of the Soviet Revolution and joined the guerrillas fightingBolsheviks, finally to graduate from the School of Infantry Cadets in Warsaw and beassigned to the Lithuanian-Belarusian Division in Vilnius. After the Bolshevik War,being a decommissioned soldier, Piasecki painfully experienced life in poverty. Thiswas when he began to earn his sustenance by smuggling. He later entered a few-yearlongcooperation with the 2nd Division of the High Command of the Polish Army andbecame an intelligence agent. In 1926, being unemployed again, he robbed a suburbantrain. In accordance with the law in force, the summary court sentenced him to death.However, the President of the Republic Ignacy Mościcki pardoned Pia secki, exchangingthe penalty to 15 years in prison. Piasecki served 11 years of his sentence in the prisonsof Lida, Nowogódek, Rawicz, Mokotów, Koronowo, and finally in the toughest prisonof the Second Republic – at Święty Krzyż (the Holy Cross) near Kielce. The 20 yearsfrom 1917 to 1937 were the period decisive for the writing realism and thoroughnessof descriptions of the criminal world and presented protagonists, as well as analysesof psychological and social circumstances that lead individuals to the path of crime.Beginning with Piasecki’s first published book Kochanek Wielkiej Niedźwiedzicy (Lover of the Greater Bear, aka Lover of the Ursa Major) whose author enjoyed a quite uniquestatus of criminal prisoner, and which presented the facts of life of smugglers onthe Polish-Soviet fringe in 1922–1924, the precious study of the criminal world wascontinued in the trilogy Jabłuszko, Spojrzę ja w okno, and Nikt nie da nam zbawienia(Apple, Shall I Look into the Window, and No One is to Redeem us). In Żywot człowiekarozbrojonego (Life of the Human Disarmed), the protagonist moves through all the levelsof conflict with the law, and the reader follows the process of his reflections to becomefamiliar with the impact of the external world on the dramatic choices made.The work of Piasecki follows the current of prose keen on social environmentof the 1930s, based on authenticity and autobiographic experience, and whose cog -nitive values result among others from the personal involvement of the author, whocorroborates knowledge based on experience and direct contact. It is a specific typeof participatory observation: a method of researching criminal phenomena wherethe observer is part of the criminal world.The goal of the writer, which he actually frequently emphasised, was the eagernessto share the knowledge on criminals with the society, with the provision thatthe criminal world he portrayed was multidimensional rather than just a separate,specific social group, standing out from among the “normal” people. He also paidspecial attention to the life’s circumstances that can “make” anyone a criminal. It is alsocharacteristic of Piasecki to juxtapose criminals against people who are “mechanically”honest. In examining the writer’s views on crime, such a ploy demolishes the positivistdivision of the society into criminals and decent people. Honest by default, manya decent citizen proves to be a bad man. On the other hand, many derailed outcastsfrom the society are in fact good and truly honest. Some stories presented by Piaseckiare quite precise illustrations of theories in the crime sciences. In his descriptionsof the demimonde of the Minsk thieves, Piasecki described them in terms very closeto those presented by Edward Sutherland in The Professional Thief, a book writtenby a professional thief with Sutherland’s sociological commentary.The history of literature knows many writers whose works were based on the introspectionof their respective authors, and whose content allows delving into the socialreality of a given time and an insightful analysis of criminal personalities, as well as anattempt at defining the factors that influence criminal behaviours. Such a knowledgeof the human/the criminal is especially well articulated in realistic prose (Balzac,Zola, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Marquez, Remarque, Piasecki, Nachalnik, Wiskowski, Mironowicz).Certainly, the belles-lettres play a special role in this context, providinga source of knowledge, especially if by the virtue of the vicissitudes of his or her life andthoughts the author can convey information helpful in explaining and understanding the assessment of the phenomena investigated by criminal sciences.