Search

The paper examines the essence of the appellate court as a controlling judicial instance and clarifies the basic principle according to which the appellate court works and issues judicial acts. Based on this, a check was made to match the nature of the appellate court proceedings with the nature of the classification of his powers as proposed in art. 334 of the Bulgarian Criminal Procedure Code. At the end of the paper, a new classification of his powers, compatible with the nature of appellate judicial review, was developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty years ago a number of revisionist histories of the institutions of criminal justice were published. Collectively they located the emergence of the institutions of police and prisons in modernity and the advent of capitalism (see for example Foucault, 1977; Ignatieff, 1978; 1979; and Melossi and Pavarini, 1981). One book, published in 1976, that was largely overlooked by both historians and criminologists was Thorsten Sellin's Slavery and the Penal System. Sellin (1976) proposed a radically different history, rather than focus on rupture he emphasised continuity. The contemporary criminal justice system, he argued, had its roots not in modernity but in the slave societies of Antiquity. This paper draws on both Sellin's Slavery and the Penal System and my paper 'Is the Empire coming home? Liberalism, exclusion and the punitiveness of the British State' presented to the 2014 BSC conference (Moore, 2014). This allows me to demonstrate not only criminal justice's origins in Antiquity's slavery but also how these roots equipped criminal justice to play a central role in the colonial project of domination and exploitation. I argue that by understanding this history we can see that the tendency to reinforce inequality and oppress the 'other' that characterises contemporary criminal justice is not an aberration but a natural consequence of its genealogy. Criminal Justice (and the associated discourse of criminology) was built for maintaining and enforcing inequality in diverse societies. Creating equality in a diverse world will require a strategy based around abolition, transformative solutions and decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant progress has been made to improve victims' experiences of the criminal justice system and more recent attempts have been made to improve victim access to appropriate support services. Collaborative partnerships between statutory and nonstatutory agencies are essential in order to ensure that victims of crime can access their entitlements to information and support. However, a consequence of the increasing competitiveness for limited funding has resulted in support services having to adopt protectionist strategies in order to survive, resulting in a reluctance to share good practices and develop collaborative partnerships. This paper draws together the findings of a rapid evidence assessment on what works in supporting victims of crime and the preliminary findings of an evaluation study of a model of victim care which promotes the sharing of best practice, and further explores the benefits of developing communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting with the certitude that the theoretical knowledge always precedes legislative solutions, then subsequently, scientific theory is the one that should provide the necessary supplementary explanations for the formulations contained in the law, giving the impression of being simple at first glance, and as such eliminates or reduces the unclarities and problems that one could encounter while applying the law into practice and at the same time positively influencing and improving the legislative, the importance of theoretical studies and analyses prove to be incontestable. Given its complexity and especially due to the diverse forms of manifestation, the concept of organized crime is considered to be one of the most controversial concepts in modern social science. For this reason, but especially due to its presence in (almost) every country, the problem of organized crime is treated by many criminologists and criminal law specialists from all over the world, and almost all of them try to give their own definition regarding this social phenomenon. Nevertheless, today there is no unanimously accepted definition, but on the contrary, there are countless different definitions concerning the notion of organized crime, representing not only a drawback from the doctrine, but also a big problem in practice for the fight against organized crime. The present paper will first underline and systematize some of definitions given in the universal and Serbian literature on this matter. Following this presentation, without debating each scientific approach, by applying the comparative method and the content analysis method, the noted opinions will be analyzed in a general way, and as a result of this analysis, an original classification of the essential and dominant characteristics of organized crime will be delivered. Based on the theoretical abilities of organized crime, stated in the present paper and on the analysis of this phenomenon's dominant characteristics, as well as the personal observations made during the research, we shall try to draw conclusions by giving our own definition of this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government and societal attention on young people's involvement in offending has resulted in expansion of the youth justice system, with emphasis on developing effective and sustainable interventions to reduce recidivism and enhance outcomes for young people. Social impact measurement provides the tools for exploring the experiences and outcomes of youth justice interventions. By exploring the social impact of Secure Training Centres, this paper makes an original contribution to knowledge through exploring and identifying themes in developing a social impact measurement (SIM) framework for youth offending interventions, specifically in custody. By developing Farrington's (2005) Integrated Cognitive-Antisocial Potential (ICAP) theory into a SIM framework, this research seeks to demonstrate the benefits of social impact measurement as a form of operational and performance management for organisations engaged in youth justice interventions provided that the outcomes for young people exist at the centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon a three-year longitudinal qualitative evaluation of a voluntary sector strategic partnership and delivery project involving eleven women-centred organisations. The consortium, funded by the Big Lottery (charity), worked together to support the most vulnerable women and girls across a city in the north of England 2017-2021. The partnership of eleven female led organisations delivered front-line services which aimed to enable women and girls to lead safer and healthier lives. Partners combined their expertise to support women with multiple needs including: mental health, domestic abuse, sexual violence and exploitation, experience of the criminal justice system, sex work, and substance misuse. The project aimed to achieve 3 outcomes: Outcome 1: Improved and extended access for vulnerable women and girls in Leeds to the services and support they want when they choose; Outcome 2: A holistic response to ensure that the needs of women and girls with multiple and complex issues are better supported; Outcome 3: Women and girls will be empowered to support their peers and influence service delivery, development and design across the city. Our evaluation placed the project staff, partners, stakeholders and service users at the centre of qualitative data collection, using a co-produced Theory of Change approach to data collection. Our sample of 34 service users, 35 professionals (19 interviewed twice) and monitoring data shows that the project successfully met its objectives and developed a model of practice that could be used in other contexts to support and empower vulnerable women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic home monitoring (EHM), also known as house arrest, is often described by policy makers as a less punitive, more humane method of punishment than incarceration. In practice, studies of EHM find it is often not an alternative to incarceration, but rather it increases the level of supervision for individuals along the continuum of the criminal justice system. This fact calls into question whether direct comparisons to incarceration are appropriate in evaluating the sanction. Although previous studies of the experience of EHM have concluded that individuals do not find the sanction overly burdensome, this paper articulates the importance of considering how respondents frame their experience in comparison to incarceration. These frames lead respondents to minimize the negative collateral consequences of EHM. This paper utilizes 30 interviews with individuals who have been on EHM in Chicago, Illinois. Although many respondents conclude that EHM is not overly onerous, they nonetheless recount significant disruptions to employment, housing, and family relationships. I argue that the carceral state distorts expectations about fair punishment and causes respondents to minimize the hardships they detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This paper develops and applies a comprehensive theoretical synthesis based on Routine Activities Theory to help explain why U.S. General homicide rates have recently been decreasing, while Active Shooter rates have been increasing. This is an important theoretical contribution since there are no works that have applied a theoretical synthesis to historical General homicide rates, let alone applied one to explain Active Shooters. Methods: The paper employs a historical re-analysis of U.S. Bureau of Statistics and FBI figures to support the theoretical framing of General homicide and Active Shooter rates. Results: Synthesizing Criminological Theories organized by Routine Activities Theory helps explain why more recently General homicide rates are decreasing. These types of crimes are carried out by minority males, with ready access to illegal guns, who are motivated by chronic material and cultural deprivation and often drug turf wars. Recently, progressive policies coupled with over-profiling, arrest and conviction of minority males have removed violent minority males from society, explaining the drop in General homicide rates. At the same time, Active Shooter rates are increasing. These crimes are carried out by White males motivated by relative chronic deterioration to their historical structural privilege. Paradoxically, in reducing strain to potential minority murderers through affirmative action and diversity training, this may be increasing chronic strain on White males. Also, White males have comparably easier access to affordable legal guns, since they are underrepresented in the Criminal Justice system, and thus can more readily pass background checks. An acute strain like a layoff or expulsion from school is the spark or opportunity for attack. More importantly, unlike General homicide victims, Active Shooter victims often represent an unarmed and underprepared population of fellow students or co-workers. Finally, organizational policies and short police responses are not sufficient to stop a suicidal attacker, who can potentially kill up to 180 victims before being confronted by armed authorities. Conclusions: Active Shooters are mainly White males that are theoretically motivated by a separate set of psychosocial chronic and acute strains compared to General homicide perpetrators. These motivations could be addressed through re-evaluating diversity training and adopting more humane organizational policies for dealing with potentially violent White males. To limit their access to legal guns, equitably profiling and convicting violent White males could help reduce their ability to pass background checks. Finally, Active Shooters tend to embody a suicidal proclivity, which circumvents modern deterrence measures, including timely police response rates. Given these security constraints, organizations need to be pro-active and invest in the most modern buildings, detection, surveillance and human analytics technologies as well as hire armed security or train members in the ethical use of firearms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Battle Creek, a small Midwest city in Michigan, is home to approximately 3,700 Burmese refugees, most of whom are Christians and find employment in factory jobs. In the past two years, a pressing crisis has been brewing in the Burmese community. Excessive alcohol consumption among Burmese men has led to an alarming number of DUI/DWI (driving under influence/driving while intoxicated) arrests. Burmese DWI offenders' significantly high blood alcohol levels (.32-.35) suggest potential mental health issues and their high rates of probation violation indicate the ineffective substance abuse treatment after their arrests. This paper analyzes how different perceptions and proposed solutions among three social institutions--the criminal justice system, the mental health care system, and Burmese ethnic churches--lead to the failure of correcting alcohol misuse behavior among the Burmese. The paper will discuss major challenges facing Burmese activists on this particular issue and examine the greater impact of Burmese DWI arrests on their integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and a variety of modeling strategies, including sibling fixed effects and restricted comparison groups, this paper examines the housing stability of individuals with a felony conviction but no history of incarceration relative to those of formerly incarcerated individuals as a means of disentangling the effects of incarceration and community removal from the independent effect of felon status per se. Results indicate that, like formerly incarcerated individuals, never incarcerated individuals with felony convictions experience an elevated risk of housing instability and residential mobility, even after adjusting for financial resources and behavioral characteristics. As most previous research on the collateral consequences of the criminal justice system has focused on incarceration, this paper makes an important contribution to the literature by highlighting how conviction, not just incarceration, can introduce instability into the lives of the 12 million Americans with felony records who have never served a prison sentence. These findings suggest that criminal justice reform efforts focused on increasing the use of community corrections over incarceration may do less to reduce the harm of criminal justice contact than reformers expect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Punishment and the law it represents are considered to be sacred in the US. Current understandings of punishment rely on traditional notions of benevolent paternalism which has come to represent hegemonic ideology. By using privatization as a launching point, this paper is meant to address punishment in the United States as a profit-making system. By viewing alienation and anomie as foundation for the existence of the criminal justice apparatus this work is meant to challenge boundaries used by many scholars as ways to understand the growth of the prison industrial complex. By beginning our understanding of punishment at the end of feudalism and serfdom, this paper highlights that at each state in its grotesque development, the criminal justice system has never truly been about justice; but instead a way to exploit labor, create anomie and alienation, while embodying the logic of capital. This has resulted in a monstrous machine presenting itself as sanctified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The justice system must be independent and unbiased and in accordance with international standards and not serve as an instrument to protect the politics of power and business structures and politics related to power holders. Therefore, the whole country should have inclusive reforms in judicial power and prosecution as a precondition for restoring citizens' trust, institutions that will guarantee that the executive and legislative power do their functions in accordance to legal acts and international standards. The justice system should ensure independence and, in particular the absence of political influence on decision-making in the prosecution and the judiciary, the appointment and promotion of judges and prosecutors will be depoliticized. We can conclude that the existing justice system does not offer guarantees for the independence and integrity of the judiciary, so changes are needed in accordance with international documents and good practice. There is a need for comprehensive analysis of deviant forms in the justice system, especially corruption, clear and transparent criteria and performance to fight corruption. Corruption is the main obstacle to the path of sustainable political, economic and social development of states. The legislative and institutional framework for combating corruption and organized crime has been established. However, final court decisions on cases of corruption remain particularly high. The results of this paper should reflect the analysis of the functioning of the justice system, the flaws and recommendations to improve justice institutions. The used methodology will be in the function of researching the subject and obtaining results and conclusions of the work using appropriate legal, statistical and sociological scientific methods that will achieve the specified objective. Part of the paper will be the conclusions of the paper that will be the product of analysis and scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first part of the paper, the authors point to a dynamic phase that the national legislation is currently going through. They emphasize that this dynamics is good in terms of breaking up the routine and monotony; however, they are sceptical when it comes to the area of legal standards. They notice that conservatism and traditionalism have, unfortunately, long been superseded in law, including the criminal law where the basic principles are part of the cultural heritage and should never be called into question. However, on almost daily basis, at both European and national level, we are witnessing how often it is being deviated from the principle of nullum crimen nulla poenasine lege and its segment lex certa, as well as from utima ratio dimension of criminal law. The Criminal Code of Serbia still belongs to the modern codes, with clear criminal and political postulates, but it has found itself in the middle of a tornado called 'European integration', which slowly sucks in its whirlpool the uniqueness, authenticity and distinctiveness of the criminal justice system of Serbia. The question is for how long the national identities will be capable to resist these 'weather conditions'. In this paper the authors point to certain negative trends in the substantive criminal legislation within the European integration process, by basing their arguments on the analysis of specific provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. Finally, at the end of the paper, the authors provide concrete examples in which the invisible 'Leviathan' has leaned over the national identity and authenticity of the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminology is commonly regarded as a science associated with the public functions of criminal justice, public policing, and of lesser relevance, with the private security sector. To get a better understanding on how the criminological theories could help the private security professionals, this paper starts by reviewing the early schools of thoughts of modern criminology and some of the contemporary trends. Then, two suitable theories, i.e. the Rational Choice and the Routine Activity, relevant to the security managers' informational needs, are presented and discussed. Some crime prevention and crime reduction models of great practical use in the management of security, derived from the above mentioned criminological theories, are analyzed in the last part of the paper. In addition, some concepts of the theoretical body of knowledge on security management inspired by the criminological science are revised. In its conclusion, this paper underlines the usefulness of including criminology in the educational programs of private security managers and presents how criminological theories may support security managers in approaching crime and informs on loss prevention from a more informed standing point and with a more pro-active attitude. Nevertheless, some limitations in using criminological theories as guiding frames of private security operations are also mentioned. The topics of this paper were explored through a documentary research method. Relevant authors from the criminology, crime prevention and private security management fields were consulted. The consulted volumes and other documentary resources are listed at the end of this paper. In addition, some relevant good practices in the private security management are stated as well. Such information is mainly derived from the author's and other security practitioners work experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of many negative consequences of the prison boom and so-called punitive turn in the US criminal justice system is an increase in "punitive frugality" inside the nation's prisons. Health, education, and food services (among others) have been greatly reduced as privatization increases. Often, the costs of programs and services are passed on to inmates--they pay fees for doctor visits, increased charges for GED test taking, and commissary costs for food beyond the minimum calories provided by the state. Yet, inmates are not unresponsive in the face of prison cost-cutting measures or perceived downturns in the quality of services; they react in many ways that can be empirically observed. In addition to overt demonstrations of dissatisfaction such as rioting, inmates also engage in covert displays. Drawing on ethnographic observations within a state prison and in-depth interviews with inmates, this paper outlines one such covert response: the adaptation of informal prison markets and currency to reflect inmate needs and counter a gradual reduction of food services. In my fieldsite (as in many state prisons), "luxury" goods like tobacco have been replaced by nutritional items, such as ramen noodles, as the de facto currency of the informal prison economy. This paper discusses this transition to ramen currency and outlines the prison ramen market. In doing so, it aims to connect trends in micro transactions (e.g., trading packets of ramen for other goods or services in prison) with the macro conditions of the US carceral field in the era of mass incarceration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with serious mental illness are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system. In recent years, efforts to reduce justice involvement and recidivism have focused on the implementation of new mental health diversion strategies, as well as increasing access to mental health care during incarceration and upon re-entry. This paper examines the role and experience of mental health professionals working in this context. Specifically, I consider their conceptualization of the relevant institutional logics of safety and care, the occupational challenges associated with their professional prerogatives as mental health 'boundary spanners', and the potential for variation within their perceptions of responsibility of care. Data for this project stem from observations and interviews with mental health professionals working in a local jurisdiction in Texas, with a particular focus on the broad range of mental health services provided by the local mental health authority in coordination with the criminal justice system in that area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite attempts to rectify the injustices experienced by victims of sexual violence within the criminal justice system, unfounded rates for sexual violence remain high and many victims continue to feel disempowered and voice-less. In this context, police officers are torn between the struggle of representing the voiceless and disempowered, while also needing to protect those who are falsely accused from the stigma of a sex offender. Recognizing the lack of empirical knowledge on the understandings of victims among police who respond to and investigate forms of sex crimes, in this paper we draw on interviews with officers working in Internet Child Exploitation, sex crimes, and sexual assault/child abuse units across 10 Canadian police service organizations to understand how police interpret and respond to child, youth, and adult victims of sex crimes. We unpack the range of interpretations of victims, explore if and how interpretations of victims translate into police perceptions of their interactions with victims and their interpretations of the possible outcomes that can be offered in the investigation, and highlight the difficulties officers encounter as they strive to balance their occupational role with victims' needs. We argue that police interpretations of sexual violence and sexual violence victims are shaped by the officer's adherence to or rejection of understandings of the "ideal victim". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden has one of the most "feminist" governments in the world, with gender equality explicitly on the political agenda since the 1970s. However, sexual violence remains a problem in the country, with low reporting rates of the crime and even lower rates of convictions within the criminal justice system. This paper looks at how rape has been legislated against by the Swedish Parliament, and particularly how social movements have lobbied the government for laws that better reflect the reality of women's experiences with sexual coercion and violence that often occur in the "grey areas" of sexuality (Gavey 2005). Although many have argued that the criminal justice system can never be a site wherein women will achieve gender equality, rape law and its implementation can be an important signal of the priorities of a government. The new consent law in Sweden, which came into effect in July 2018, attempts to encompass a broader array of violent and coercive sexual experiences and has been seen as a feminist victory. Many feminists celebrate the new consent law as one that will lead to important changes to gendered norms around sexuality, not only within the legal system but within society at large. The law is not a sufficient condition for societal change but it does provide an important starting point and can work in tandem with education and awareness-raising campaigns to provide support and justice to victim-survivors, and ultimately to prevent rape and upend gendered norms around sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various forms of violence have become a part of many women's everyday life. Starting from intimate partner violence, sexual harassment, rape, acid mutilation, dowry deaths to female infanticide and sex-selective abortion, violence against and violation of women seem to have exacerbated in contemporary times. The aim of this paper is to explore how violence against women, namely rape, is normalized in India, reasons why there is such low reporting of crime while evaluating the actions of various actors in the criminal justice system. Additionally, I will discuss possible policy, cultural and social solutions to combat the existing rape culture in India. The victim-blaming remarks blame "western" influence for rape as it encourages girls and women to fight for their right to education, right to work, right to choose a life on their own accord. Due to the myth of misuse of rape and false allegations by women to shame men, doctors in India still carry out "two finger test" on rape victims. In villages, a lot rape cases occur as women have to go defecate in the fields or in the jungles during late nights or early mornings. This is subjected to the lack of sanitation facilities at home. Thus, increasing education and safe spaces for women is a priority in rural India. Overall, in the fight for gender equality and justice for women, it is essential for males to speak out along with women, as they play a crucial role in rape prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high numbers of mentally ill men and women incarcerated today are indisputable. This paper identifies the various ways by which people with mental illness labels involved with the criminal justice system attempt to manage stigma, including how stigma is anticipated and experienced, deflected, or avoided. When can stigma resistance be effective? How does stigma perception relate to how people seek out and/or stick with appropriate treatment. This study fills a gap by providing descriptive data about the lived experiences of this hard-to-reach, routinely excluded population, and as such findings will add supplemental insights to the existing literature. Analysis through coding information from semi-structured interviews can provide indications of how people attempt to manage and resist stigmatized identities. This data can be useful for determining the directions for support that will be most helpful for those who are most negatively affected by mental health labeling. This work also provides insight into the importance of understanding how participants anticipate being the targets of public stigma, as well as exploring the actual lived experiences of discrimination pertaining to being labelled mentally ill. I ask what strategies (if any) are employed and how to resist the stigmatization process. Through the analysis of the narratives provided, approaches can be identified that both parallel and diverge from previous theoretical conceptualization and empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persons with co-occurring disorders (COD) are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Not only are they at greater risk of arrest, they are also disproportionately represented among state prisoners and jail inmates. In this paper, we consider the role of procedural injustices, which feed a distrust in the legal system and law enforcement agents and thus erodes individuals' willingness to obey the law. Drawing from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 118 low-level offenders in the San Francisco Bay Area, we find that a much higher percentage of persons with COD reported police-based procedural injustices, and such reports were associated with much higher levels of legal cynicism and an unwillingness to obey the law. However, despite the fact that police officers were the direct source of violent and aggressive procedural injustices, persons with COD reported higher than expected perceptions of police legitimacy. We explain this paradox by noting possible neighborhood effects. Specifically, persons with COD were more likely to reside in neighborhoods they considered unsafe. There, police officers' patterns of behavior were in part understood as a function of the violent and disordered contexts officers patrolled. This understanding produced more tempered views of the police's illegitimacy than anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, the Greek goddess Themis has been a symbol of Western jurisprudence and adjudication. Themis symbolizes not only the Divine law, but also impartiality of judges, weighing of evidence, sword of justice for guilty and most importantly – risk of unfairness. Criminal procedure, like symbol of Themis, above all other branches of law must be shining example of the values of Western jurisprudence. However, in reality criminal procedure in theory and practice has always been the most vulnerable to unfairness – the serpent around the law code at Themis’s feet. Criminal justice too often encounters cases where it must be decided if illegally obtained evidence or its source, or evidence found on the bases of illegally obtained evidence or its source may be used to prove the issue or must be found in admissible and excluded to guarantee a fair trial and due process. Such issues are decided under doctrine of Fruit of the poisonous tree. The subject-matter and focus of the paper is a Fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine and its applicability in Latvian criminal procedure law. In most cases there is no doubt that the evidence or source of evidence obtained in violation of human rights, constitution, general principles of criminal procedure law are strictly inadmissible. However, there is not a uniform opinion whether legally obtained evidence or its source found because of use of illegally obtained evidence is admissible or must be excluded. Aim of the article is to show what is a doctrine of Fruit of the poisonous tree, if and to what extent it influences admissibility of evidence not only in Latvian criminal procedure law, but procedural law in general. While writing the article the following research methods have been used: historical method, analytical method, deduction, comparative method and analogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue that includes relationship between settler colonialism and queer criminology; association of criminal justice system with slavery; and association of fatal violence with criminology.

Reforms in the criminal-justice and political system should be simultaneously implemented, because they are inextricably linked. Challenges that arise in conditions of increased security risks and threats from the most sophisticated unconventional types of high political and economic corruption and with them the closely related institutional type of organized crime impose the need for more profound systemic reforms in the structures of the crucial social systems, especially the criminal-justice and the political system. Nonstandard situations, to a smaller or larger extent, that last for the entire past period of independence of the Republic of Macedonia, cannot be solved by standard measures and solutions, which otherwise give excellent results in countries with a long-standing democratic tradition and high level of political culture. In the paper, among the other methods, the following methods will be used: the method of analyzing the contents of strategies, laws and draft laws; the logical method of rational confrontation of arguments based on logical principles among opposing theses, in the context of rationalist epistemology; the empirical method based on indisputable empirical facts from various sources; the comparative method, which does not only imply comparing normative-institutional solutions among different countries, but comparing the different concepts of a reform strategy in both respectable systems; interviews with people from target groups, such as professionals in the state institutions, university professors, businessmen and lawyers; observation. For Macedonia, the most optimal, generally conceptual framework is a systemically crossed series of optimally independent key state institutions from the executive and legislative power, but not absolutely independent from a wider range of institutional mechanisms constituted in a qualitatively new way by competent representatives of professional streams and the civil sector. With the purpose of effectively and efficiently functioning of the criminal-justice and political system, it is necessary to establish a system that will function with the least possible damage, by the force of the internal logic of the system itself, regardless of the fact whether or not the much deficient political will was present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police culture scholarship documents that though there is fragmentation of the so-called "monolithic" police culture, historically consistent features of the occupational culture of police exist. Drawing on ethnographic observations in three U.S. police departments, this paper describes how one consistent feature of police culture--the preoccupation with danger and potential death--is maintained by the commemoration of officers killed in the line of duty. The use of commemorative cultural artifacts by officers and departments contributes to an organizational memory that locally reflects and reifies the salience of danger and potential death in policing. Further, commemoration of dead officers is not restricted to a department's own; the dead of other departments are commemorated by independent police organizations and their officers, maintaining occupational assumptions of dangerous and deadly police work that transcend a single department and its organizational memory. Implications for the study of police culture and police reform efforts are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing systematic and generalised abuses on human rights continues to animate the academic world, practitioners, the civil society but also the public at large. People have resorted to amnesty, to criminal trials specific to the classic/traditional justice, to instruments of transitional justice such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, focusing on the rehabilitation of victims, on reparation policies, on reconciliation. The present paper, based on desk research, intends to show the manner in which international practices in the field of criminal justice and that of transitional justice regarding managing abuses perpetrated by certain political regimes have evolved. Thus, it will be observable how the retributive practices of criminal justice, focused on the punishment of those guilty, have been complemented by the restorative practices of transitional justice, which offer a particular attention to the victims. In the initial stages, military/international tribunals and international criminal courts that focused on retributive measures were established. Subsequently, the creation of the International Criminal Court shows how managing past abuses demands conjugated, complementary solutions, namely both consolidating the classic/traditional act of justice and applying the instruments of transitional justice. To this end, art. 75 of the Rome Stature introduces the notion of compensation as a reparatory measure and art. 79 establishes the creation of the Trust fund in support of victims. Hybrid tribunals (Lebanon and Cambodia) consolidate the path opened by the International Criminal Court giving a central role to victim reparations, to consolidating justice and national reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The islands of the adversarial proceedings encountered in the criminal investigation phase, offer the means of evidence submitted under adversarial conditions extra reliability and are an expression of the guarantees from which the accused person benefits. The study is divided into three chapters, it begins with an overview of the adversarial principle/ principle audi alteram partem which characterizes the trial phase and is sporadically found in the prosecution phase; in the next section, different concepts and theories are discussed regarding the procedures in the criminal prosecution phase in which the adversarial principle is applicable. In its last part, the paper analyzes the effects of the adversarial principle on the reliability of the evidence obtained with its application, the exclusion of the evidence obtained in violation of the adversarial principle and de lege ferenda proposals of the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sections 85 and 368 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the Republic of Latvia [3] prescribes only several cases when a person can be exempted from payment for defence provided by the state in criminal procedure. Sometimes the defendant refuses from a defender by the moment he gets to know that by the process termination, he will be recovered a payment for the defence provided him by the state. For instance, a refusal from an advocate during the agreement process mainly occurs with an aim to exempt a particular person from the payment for defence provided by the state. The current situation in Latvia concerning the defence provided by the state and further collection of payment for provided defence could be figuratively designated as "an advocate loan". It shall be indicated, that in case if a person is being sentenced, he or she is also recovered payment for the defence provided by the state. It shall be taken into account that, in the majority of cases, persons do not challenge their guilt; they are fighting for milder punishment. This means that they are being recovered the payment, except in those cases when a base for exemption from payment is established. This issue is very topical in Latvia, because during the past two years the process of recovery of payment for defence provided by the state was started. There are cases when the payment is being recovered without a reason. The aim of the paper is to give an insight into the current situation, the cases when the payment for defence provided by the state is being recovered after it is received and cases when a person is exempted from the payment, as well as proposals for possible solutions in some of the related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hungarian Act on Criminal Procedure in force (hereinafter: Act) was modified by the Hungarian Legislator in 15th of September, 2015. The reason of this modification was that the illegal crossing of border and the related acts were declared as criminal offences by the legislator at the same time in the Hungarian Criminal Code. These criminal offences are: illegal crossing the closing of border, damaging the closing of border and hindering the building of closing of border. The aim of the Hungarian Government to stop illegal migration, and to protect the security of the Hungarian State and citizens was very acceptable. For the reason of the special character of these criminal offences, special procedural rules are inserted by the legislator into the Chapter titled „Special Criminal Proceedings” of the Act. It shall be emphasized, that the illegal migration will be an enormous challenge of security in Europe in the future. For the mentioned reason, this special criminal procedure will be regulated in the Draft of the New Hungarian Act on Criminal Procedure as well. The decision of legislating the new Act on Criminal Procedure was made by the Hungarian Government in 2015. The decision was necessary regarding to the new forms of criminality and criminal investigation. The conception of the Draft was accepted by the Government at 11th of February in 2015. The directives of this conception were the followings: efficiency, rapidity, simplicity, up-to-dateness, coherency and expediency. The aim of this study is presenting of the new regulations with special reference to the problematical rules and anomalies regarding to the special criminal procedure on crimes against closing of border. The characteristic of the paper will be the analytical method with the aim of creating de lege ferenda proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes crime and justice in the aftermath of natural calamities in the Philippines. In particular, it zooms in on Tacloban City, one of the urban areas directly hit by Typhoon Haiyan, and notes how the national government failed to afford protection and decent standards of living for victims of the disaster, in contravention of its obligations both under the Constitution and international human rights laws. Relevant provisions under the Revised Penal Code are analyzed, as well as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 (Republic Act 10121). The author forwards that the implementation of public order through criminal justice should have been prioritized for humanitarian aid to be properly implemented, and recommends a revisit of the underlying principles of RA 10121. He proposes general policy modifications at the level of both local and national government in relation to disaster risk reduction, response and management, particularly promoting the idea of public order and welfare as twin complementary concepts in effective disaster relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protection of personal data is one of the basic values in Europe, for the Member States of the EU and for the EU institutions. The protection of persons in relation to the processing of their personal data is a fundamental right laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (Article 8) and in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Article 16). Lisbon Treaty brings fresh air not only to the future of the EU in general, but also to the relevance of fundamental rights-and in particular the right to the protection of personal data. Also, rapid technological developments and globalization have brought new challenges for the protection of personal data. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty provides a much needed opportunity to reflect on the main challenges for the protection of personal data and on how the European Commission intends to address these challenges in the future. In January 2012 European Commission proposed a comprehensive reform of the EU's data protection rules. The data protection reform is a legislative package to update and modernize the rules of the 1995 Data Protection Directive and the 2008 Framework Decision on data protection in judicial cooperation in criminal matters and police cooperation. It concerns two legislative instruments: the General Data Protection Regulation (intended to replace 1995 Directive on Data Protection) and the Data Protection Directive in the area of law enforcement (intended to replace the 2008 Data Protection Framework Decision). The Commission introduced again two sector-specific instruments rather than one of general application. In these paper will be discuss briefly the EU legal framework on data protection before and under the Lisbon Treaty. Than the draft General Data Protection Regulation and Police and Criminal Justice Data Protection Directive will be comment and analyzed. Finally, a summary and some concluding remarks will be present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite sharing a family background, siblings vary from one another in variety of later life outcomes. While previous studies have examined sibling differences in criminal justice outcomes, no study has investigated whether skin color influences this relationship. Social scientists have demonstrated that skin color significantly shapes the life chances of blacks and Latinos, however very little work has been done on siblings. In this paper, I examine if skin color affects differential contact with the criminal justice system using both a nationally representative and sibling sample. My preliminary analyses suggest that men with darker skin are significantly more likely to experience a lifetime arrest than their lighter-skinned counterparts, and that this relationship remains even when looking at members of the same family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of mass incarceration, whether they emphasize the machinations of elites or the demands of non-elites, commit themselves to a variety of claims about the role of the African-American community in either supporting or resisting the punitive turn. These claims bear on any evaluation of the trajectory of criminal justice policy over the last thirty years, but, as is readily acknowledged, existing evidence is unsystematic and often anecdotal. We simply do not know enough about what African-Americans thought and especially about what their elected representatives did once in office. This paper seeks to correct this deficit by examining the trajectory of black public opinion in a variety of domains in more detail than has previously been done, and estimating the impact of black elected officials on carceral outcomes. We find that the reaction of the African-American community has been marked by contrasting impulses: as victims of the carceral state, they have expressed significantly less punitive views than whites; but as victims of crime, they have been very and increasingly concerned about public order. We also find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our best evidence suggests that the inux of their representatives into office has exacerbated punitive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the labor market consequences of incarceration in prison have been central to the literature on mass incarceration, punishment, and inequality, other components of the growing criminal justice system have largely been ignored by sociologists. In particular, the rise of mass incarceration was accompanied by an even larger increase in community supervision. In this paper we examine the labor market effects of one frequently experienced aspect of postprison parole, short-term custody for parole violations. Although such "intermediate sanctions" are viewed as an alternative to returning parole violators to prison, they have the potential to affect labor market outcomes in ways similar to imprisonment, including both adverse and positive effects on earnings. We estimate that parolees lost approximately 37 percent of their earnings in quarters during which they were in short-term custody. Although their earnings tended to increase in the quarter immediately following short-term sanctions - consistent with the stated intentions of such sanctions - parolees experienced further earnings loss over the longer term after intermediate sanctions. In the third quarter following a short-term custody sanction, earnings are lowered by about 13 percent. These effects are larger for those who were employed in the formal labor market before their initial incarceration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has infiltrated many aspects of contemporary life, including the criminal justice system. AI systems can be helpful tools when predicting criminal activity, analyzing large amounts of digital evidence, or making court decisions. However, in addition to the indisputable advantages provided by the use of AI technology, its application in criminal justice has actualized the issues of the bias of its algorithms and the lack of transparency in decision-making processes. Algorithm bias can arise from several factors, including implicit biases in the design of the algorithms themselves or biases in the data that are imputed. These factors can result in algorithms that unfairly target specific groups or communities, increasing the risk of discrimination in the criminal justice system. The lack of transparency in the functioning of complex AI algorithms and machine learning models makes it difficult to understand how the algorithms make their decisions and consequently makes it difficult to analyze and valorize the obtained results. The above can make it challenging to recognize and correct biases in algorithms but also lead to a lack of confidence in the fairness of decisions based on machine learning algorithms. Finally, AI decision-making procedures' implicit bias and lack of transparency collide with the core principle of criminal procedure - the right to a fair trial. The purpose of this research is to use the example of the case study - State of Wisconsin v. Loomis (2016) - to show the extent of the potential bias of AI algorithms, as well as the impossibility of contesting a court decision based on machine learning algorithms, due to the non-transparent internal functioning of the AI system. The contribution of this research is a deeper understanding of the complexity of the application of AI algorithms in the criminal justice system, the use of which must not come at the expense of the defendant's fundamental rights, especially the right to a fair trial. The internal functioning of the AI system should be understandable to the end user so that the predicting output values of such algorithms are subject to (human) validation and critical review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses from the theoretical point of view, but also taking into consideration some practical references, one of the most controversial procedures covered by the Code of Criminal Procedure in force - namely the procedure of preliminary chamber. The study notes that since the entry into force of new criminal legislation and until its writing, this procedural stage has undergone many modifications and adjustments, in particular through the unconstitutionality decisions it invokes and analyses briefly. At the same time, issues of judicial practice resulting from the recent jurisprudence of the national courts facing different problems caused by the causes brought to their attention are also discussed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent criminal justice reform brought by the entry into force of the new Criminal Code and the new Criminal Procedure Code carries forward the changes in approach with regard to sentence execution, introduced following the adoption of Law No. 275/2006 on the execution of sentences and the measures ordered by judicial bodies during the criminal trial. Having as a point of departure the joint standard set by Recommendation 2006/2 of the Commission of Ministers, this scientific paper is aimed at presenting the evolution of the Romanian legislative system in terms of sentence execution and the manner of regulation of the new institutions, including custodial educational measures that may be ordered for juvenile offenders, but also in terms of the positive obligations incumbent upon the institutions of the State involved in sentence enforcement and sentence execution supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I propose a formalization of pure-strategy subgame perfect equilibria in general continuous-time games. The main idea is to formulate self-enforcing agreements corresponding to a strategic interaction directly, without setting up a whole extensive-form game. My method allows for non-Markov players' behavior, and it does not impose restrictions on players' strategies. The method applies to a broad class of games, including stochastic games, in which arbitrarily many players can have both observable and hidden actions. In many cases, my approach produces tractable and explicit solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an emerging trend of using artificial intelligence (AI) to support human in decision-making, from employee recruitment to criminal justice. It is important to design and implement human-centric AI, which calls for a thorough empirical understanding of users' fairness perceptions in practical scenarios. Drawing upon the organizational justice theory and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) literature, we investigate how AI's explanation and task objectivity may jointly influence the three different dimensions of users' perceived fairness, which further lead to their trusting intentions of AI decisionmaking systems. We suggest that XAI positively influences users' perceived distributive, procedural, and interactional fairness as well as it is more effective for objective task than subjective task. We will test the proposed model by conducting a 3x2 experiment. We believe that this study will significantly contribute to the theoretical landscape of XAI and human-AI interaction and provide important practical contributions for AI system designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses a practical issue of great relevance, namely that of opportunity and utility of preventive arrest of a person who is already in detention in another case. The issue is also extended and other preventative measures and is related to the fulfillment of the requirement of "threat to public order" imposed to be met in this matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has in recent years been much discussion of, and concern with, attrition in sexual offences cases and attempts to increase victim participation. None the less, many questions remain regarding the (in)justice faced by victims/survivors where cases are taken up by the criminal justice system, as well as what a more 'victim focused approach' might look like. The article examines these issues by a detailed analysis of the progression of 87 rape cases (from reporting to police to conviction) going through the criminal justice system in three separate police force areas across the North East of England. The article explores the need to consider the vulnerabilities of victims/survivors, the different trajectories involved in 'acquaintance rape', 'intimate partner violence rape' and 'historical rape', as well as the interplay between the CJS and other services, if we are to see victim focused criminal justice experiences and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current transitional period in criminal justice reform, intermediate and alternative forms of punishment have surfaced as economic imperatives. Monetary sanctions have a broad appeal to the goals of punishment and revenue generation. Theoretical explanations suggest a myriad of individual, institutional, and structural forces create political opportunities for criminal justice expansion. In this study, I provide a historical account on the development of monetary sanctions in Texas - home to the largest criminal justice system in America - to explicate the political processes and arrangements that gave rise to criminal court costs. I investigate the development of monetary sanctions law as a series of historical periods by using legislative records, fiscal analyses, public testimonies, newspaper articles, and criminal justice statistics. I describe trends in the expansion of monetary sanctions as a product of legal ambiguity and institutional annexation and dependence. I show that the legislation became increasingly inclusive of other institutions and organizations - many of which were not directly involved with the formal criminal justice system - which fostered a dependence on monetary sanctions for revenue. Findings contribute to research on punishment and penal policy by illustrating how policy reforms may produce systems of alternative punishment that paradoxically become severe and wide-reaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a precipitous rise in incarceration rates over the last four decades, U.S. policymakers face increasing pressure to reduce the financial and social costs associated with the criminal justice system. Few proposed reforms have garnered more widespread support than pretrial diversion, which provides for assignment of some individuals to mental health treatment as an alternative to prosecution. Diversion programs are widely hailed as a key solution to the incarceration crisis, but research examining their impacts is limited. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in a large urban jurisdiction and analysis of court data, this study has three primary findings. First, although diversion programs allow participants who complete treatment to avoid felony convictions, they can increase punishment for those who do not complete. Second, rates of completion are low and highly unequal across demographic groups. Third, inequalities in completion rates are configured by differences in mental health. As a result, the defendants most in need of mental healthcare are paradoxically those most likely to suffer negative consequences when diverted into treatment. These findings suggest that some therapeutic alternatives may serve less to re-socialize than to sort, setting apart for punishment the racialized and the ill. They raise questions about the risks inherent to reform efforts that repurpose the penal system to deliver mental healthcare rather than simply scaling back the system's reach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to understand if the experience of discrimination and the disposition to anticipate discrimination in social interactions explain racial differences in trust and if the relationship between discrimination and trust is stronger for whites or for racial minorities. Survey research finds that members of racial and ethnic minority groups--and blacks in particular--report substantially lower levels of trust than do whites. Indeed, racial differences in trust pervade a range of social contexts, from interpersonal relationships with friends, family, and neighbors to interactions with the health care, social service, and criminal justice systems. Scholars often attribute the racial trust gap to historical and contemporary forms of discrimination. Nonetheless, few studies have assessed the relationship between discrimination and trust in the U.S. context. Using the Chicago Community Adult Health Study (n=3105), I examine how the experience and anticipation of discrimination relate to generalized trust, trust in neighbors, and trust in community police. I find that the experience of discrimination contributes modestly to racial differences in all three forms of trust. However, the negative relationship between discrimination and generalized trust is strongest for whites and negligible for blacks and Hispanics. These findings suggest that efforts to eliminate discrimination in interpersonal and institutional contexts may have little immediate effect on racial differences in generalized trust. Moreover, perceptions of reverse discrimination may exacerbate an observed long-term decline in generalized trust among whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]