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The article gives an overview of the current situation of recidivism studies and researches in Lithuania. It also presents some insights for possible directions of national research development in future. Despite the researches on recidivism are of great importance and needed the sources of information on this issue are very poor in Lithuania. Official statistics is the main and almost the only source of information. This kind of data allows to describe but not to explain the situation of recidivism. Our country does not collect information on two important aspects of recidivist offences: (1) the causes of repeated offences that have occurred despite preventive actions have been taken and (2) latent part of repeated offences that were not grasped by criminal justice system. The studies on recidivism only give the overview of current recidivism situation (level, dynamics, structure), but supply no information that is needed for effective preventive practice in Lithuania. There are some European countries that are at the same starting point as Lithuania in recidivism studies. Nevertheless there are also very advanced countries that exhaustively use the current science achievements and advanced methods of research in criminal career studies. The most important point is that the results of such researches make the scientific basis to create, implement and monitor preventive measures on recidivism. The article also shows that strategic aim in the field of research for Lithuania is to start the creation of modern and effective system of recidivism prevention. It also names the necessary data that should be collected and problems that should be solved in order to create such system.
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The article aims to show that the issue of city safety could be tackled through maintenance of physical and social order and through the wise urban planning besides the organized police efforts. City planners and architects should take an active part in this activity. Safety or the sense of safety is one of the most important components of quality of life. Nevertheless crime is not the only factor that determines them. The status of social order and the integrity of local community influence safety feelings too. Indeed crime is the manifestation of long lasting process of social disorganization. Therefore efforts to maintain social order and security should start as soon as first evidence of disorganization appears. The article presents the main ideas of environmental criminology and the range of space based criminological theories (namely, defensible space, crime prevention through environmental design, space syntax theory and etc.) that have started in the middle of XX th century in the West and are still popular now. They had influenced practice and make a core of current situational crime prevention. These theoretical approaches explain how physical environment and distribution of objects in the city space create or prevent crime and influence the safety of city inhabitants. These approaches do not explain the causes of crime but give recommendations how to control or prevent crime in various city spaces. Article also notes how safety criterions have been integrated into urban planning in some countries of North America and Europe. USA and United Kingdom are the most eminent among them. The evaluation of Lithuanian case showed that urban planning and security of safety are still separated spheres here. There is also little or no scientific discussion on the topics of interrelation of social and physical environment, urban planning and environmental design and crime and safety.
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The article discusses the problem of criminological knowledge, analyses the role of the politics and government constructing scientific discourse. Starting with the analysis of the power and knowledge interrelationship from the social constructionism theory perspective, the article further deals with the politics and control of criminological knowledge. Criminological knowledge is integral with the questions of social control and, accordingly, their political nature. The knowledge produced by criminologists is not neutral, but rather is constructed on the basis of power relations. Hence, it is important to deconstruct criminological discourse systematically, questioning the existing social reality of crime, the notion of social order and control. The article presents the fundamental ideas of critical criminology school concerning the influence of power and politics on the content and contours of criminological knowledge. It should be also noted that in order to better understand the state of criminological knowledge in certain state, it is vital to consider its past and present political, economical and social transformations. Herein, the article describes the peculiarities of the criminological knowledge in post-Soviet countries. Attention is also given to the problems of the construction of contemporary criminological knowledge in the context of two main criminological perspectives – administrative and critical criminology.
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Contemporary crime trends, diffusion of various forms of deviance, problems of delinquency, require analytical complex knowledge about the nature of crime issues, their possible control and prevention. Social demands for high level specialists possessing solid educational background that transcends boundaries of sociology, psychology, law, and other realms of social knowledge, have already manifested themselves both locally and globally. Interdisciplinary approach to teaching criminology, bridging different theoretical paradigms inside criminology, is essential in order to provide students with thorough understanding of the societal roots of ‘criminal conflicts’ and ways of their solution. The project aims to create interdisciplinary criminology studies at Vilnius University. They will consist of three study programs such as: Master program of Sociology criminology, Master program of Psychology criminology and “Criminology”- a branch of Law study program. All study programs will have common unit of criminology that will ensure proper specialization of psychology, sociology and law in the framework of former study programs. Criminological practice will also be enclosed into these studies. The Law institute will organize this practice. Currently only narrow specialized criminology studies exist in Lithuania. Also separate courses of criminology have been taught up till now. Such kind of interdisciplinary criminology studies has not existed yet. The idea of interdisciplinary criminology studies is unique not only in the context of Lithuania, but in the Central and Eastern Europe too. This kind of studies is also rare in the academic context of West Europe and North America.
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This article examines the challenges and difficulties of an interdisciplinary approach in criminology. It does so by first briefly describing criminology’s history, thereby pointing at its rather weak epistemological history. More in depth, the development of criminology in the Netherlands is analysed in this respect. Though today criminology is an extremely popular subject amongst students and policymakers alike, this has not always been the case. The role of criminologists in the public debate on crime and punishment has changed qui te substantially over time as well. Key-questions with respect to criminology’s present and future are: how to apply the ideal of interdisciplinarity in a meaningful way in our teaching?; how to approach the topical criminological themes in our globalised world?; and how to maintain academic freedom in acontext in which policymakers expect a lot of criminologists?
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The article represents general overview of critical criminology. It briefly shows in what academic context it has emerged in the United States, Great Britain and continental Europe. The main focus is on critical criminological discourse of 6th –7th decades in the XXth century in continental Europe. The article overviews the main ideas of critical criminology: deconstruction and abolitionism, by representing works of the three eminent Dutch criminologists: W.Bonger, H.Bianchi and L.Hulsman.
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The use of infrared cameras (thermal vision) as a contact-free method of lie detection is a subject as controversial as interesting, which can be attested by recently conducted studies. The article introduces the subject, explains the basic notions, and provides a historical outline. The studies mentioned in the article give hope for a more extensive application of infrared cameras for future lie detection. Certainly, possibility of remote observation of a subject, especially without the subject being aware, may result in problems of ethical and legal nature. What appears a crucial option in this area, however, is the possibility of combining such a test with polygraph examination.
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The article presents the theoretical grounds for forming opinions in polygraph examinations and their practical application. Presented are the ways of constructing a polygraph expertise from the perspective of the argumentative model of evidence-based reasoning. The article also points at the ways of defending the opinion against the potential criticism from the judicial body/commissioning party. Moreover, it includes a detailed list of scientifically corroborated techniques designed for various types of examinations.
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The purpose of the present research is revealing the correlations between social anxiety, forgiveness and values among convict-prisoners in penal institutions. Relational screening model was adopted in the present research. Relational screening is used to reveal the relationships between two or more variables, and cause-and-effect relationships. The universe of the present research consists of convicts and prisoners in Konya penal institutions in 2013-2014 years. The work group of the present research consists of 680 volunteer convicts and prisoners selected randomly among these. The data collection tool in research value scale, the scale of forgiveness and social anxiety scale was used. The results obtained from this study; The findings of the present research showed that the most important independent variable that affected values was forgiveness, In addition, the most important variable that affects social anxiety in the tested model is values variable and Additionally, second most important variable that affects social anxiety indirectly in the tested model is forgiveness variable.
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The paper presents scientific approaches for prediction of body height of a person according to the dimensions of the legs or gait parameters. A great benefit for the calculation of height people are findings of forensic biomechanics. The article presents the current trends forensic biomechanics and its practical application. Forensic biomechanics to study mainly footprints of locomotion that were still marginalized. Footprints of bipedal locomotion are typical of the tracks that reflect the functional and dynamic properties of the object acting, and it is possible to decode these tracks biomechanical content. Body height is one of the basic characteristics that serve to identify the person. Overview of the models can predict the height of a person in relation to gender, race, age and parameters feet.
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Analysis of pedological phases that adhered to clothing, footwear, vehicles, or other objects is relatively frequently required in forensic practice to confirm the place of origin of contamination. These are basically two types of tasks. This entails either standard comparisons, when the questioned soil phases are compared with collected reference samples to confirm the crime scene, vehicle route, etc. Alternatively, forecasting of an unknown location is required where contamination by soil may have occurred. These are in both cases complex analyses, in which the organic component of the sample is studied sepa-rately, possibly anthropogenic contamination and mineral material itself. Basic techniques are optical light microscopy in transmitted and reflected light, polarization, fluorescence, next are utilised SEM/EDS (WDS), XRF and FTIR. For the clay fraction, but also for other phases, the x-ray diffraction is imperative with applying conventional powder diffraction in transmission and reflected modes, scanning in a rotating capillary, and also micro x-ray diffraction, which allows to obtain a relevant structural record from the diameter around 0,1mm. Biological material frequently present in the traces is analysed separately, plant and animal relicts are analyzed, including microscopic shells and relics (e.g. group Dia-toms, etc.). Anthropogenic material (glass fragments, slag, construction materials, etc.) is analyzed separately by other techniques and may increase the probability measure of a match (hit) between traces and reference samples. Genetic methods that could compare both information from plant fragments and soil microorganisms are a big potential into the future.
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The author in the present article summarizes our long-term experience of more than a half-century of the activity of judicial experts and academic staff, including looking at the current situation in technical and economic fields.
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The authors, on the grounds of the results of applied research, define basic attributes of the methodics of detection and clarification of crimes in their article. They stress the importance of strategy and tactics in the system of detection and clarification of crimes (cognition) while solving the issue and conducting purposeful characteristics of conceptions and functions of methodics. According to their opinions, presented knowledge is accepted in a police practice during creation and use of methodics, explanation and evaluation these categories in accordance with the need of creation of methodology in the system of police sciences.
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The authors deal with the issue of deployment DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) team in the process of identifying a larger number of deaths in the Czech Republic, synergies with the Integrated Rescue System and cooperation of individual experts in dealing with emergencies.
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Criminalistics is defi ned as a separate branch of science that explores and explains the regularities of the emergence, disappearance, search, exploration and use of forensic traces, other judicial evidence and the criminalistic important information and that develops, on this basis, the methods, procedures, means, operations, and recommendations for the process of criminal proceedings. Criminalistic science is also a complex conceptual system in which we can analytically distinguish between three aspects: theory, methodology and the scientific knowledge of the lessons learned. Professional communication presents the development of views on the theory, methodology and system of methods of scientific knowledge in criminalistics and the general characteristics of the current state of development of criminalistic science and practice focusing on the needs and transferring the knowledge of criminalistics to forensic and legal practice.
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The article introduces the possibility of processing images of CCTV for purposes of forensic practice. Thanks to this calculation, a person who was wrongly convicted was released and declared innocent. The prediction of body height was performed using the basic knowledge of descriptive geometry and numerical acts of mathematics. The accuracy of the calculation depends on the quality of the video and the accuracy of the measurement at the crime scene. The methods used are sufficiently precise and can be a guide for further use in forensic biomechanics. The investigative trial has shown very reliably that the method of calculation used is sufficiently accurate, reliable and demonstrable, and therefore a person who has been wrongly recognized as guilty in this case must be exempt and declared innocent.
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The article discusses the importance of creating ”one’s own future” by persistent offenders and its correlation with the efficiency of the re-socialisation process. It describes the risks associated with the pathologisation in the sphere of life planning and emphasises the need of shaping life plans by offenders themselves as the precondition for effective re-socialisation. Finally, it refers to the significance of efficacy of the system of all social services.
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