![Monitoring Prison System Reform in Serbia 2012-2013 and Prison System in Serbia in 2011](/api/image/getbookcoverimage?id=document_cover-page-image_476743.jpg)
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Publication looks over the situation of drug users in two European countries – Norway, known for its social and welfare-oriented state, and Bulgaria, which since the beginning of the transition from totalitarism to democracy lacks sustainable policies on prisons and drugs. The aim of this work is to comparatively present the penal policy towards drug users and the measures taken for convicted people addicted to narcotic substances, to identify those features which can be transferable and can assist Bulgarian authorities to improve the situation of drug users in and outside the prison. Finally, this research will try to propose concrete measures to be taken both within the penitentiary system and as crime prevention efforts among drug users.
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In prison, certain groups of inmates are subject to disadvantages due to specifics of their origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. These groups usually need special treatment, which is not always provided, which leads to unequal treatment and violation of their rights. This handbook examines the situation of such vulnerable groups within the prison systems of Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania and Spain. Starting from the classification of the UN Handbook on Prisoners with special needs and looking at the different national contexts, the authors identify different groups as vulnerable in different countries. In order to encompass as many groups as possible, their list was extended to include some particularly marginalised groups, such as sex offenders, prisoners with disabilities, etc. Each group is viewed in context, explaining the situations of vulnerability both generally and in the selected countries. From one side, the handbook presents the efforts for compensation of vulnerabilities in every country available in the legislation or provided by prison authorities or other actors. From the other side, it identifies the gaps in the measures and practices, which vary both from country to country and from group to group.
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The issue of imprisonment vs. alternative penalties has been debated in various European countries during the last decades, and ambulant sanctions have been heavily on the rise. Community sentences and other alternatives to imprisonment are regarded as modern instruments for the rehabilitation of offenders. The objective of the present study is to examine the scope of application of penalties without deprivation of liberty as compared to imprisonment as well as to identify promising practices of alternative criminal sanctioning in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain and Lithuania. As this study covers several European countries, the comparative perspective suggests itself nearly as a matter of course. In this connection, it seems reasonable to describe the existing ambulant sanctions of the different member states involved, taking into account their legal arrangement and their relation within the system of penal sanctions including their relation to the deprivation of liberty. It in addition appears sensible to describe and compare these ambulant sanctions with reference to their contribution to the re-socialisation or rehabilitation of those subjected to them as well as with special attention to the involvement of civil society in their execution. In a further step, promising practices in connection with ambulant sanctions could be highlighted which may be recommended for imitation by other member states. Such an approach proves to be impossible for multiple reasons, though, and it would be inadequate just to make such an attempt. There are exemplary references to ambulant sanctions in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania and Spain. This is due to the fact that scientists from these countries have taken part in the realisation of this project but not necessarily because of specific outstanding features of their sanction systems in comparison with other member states.
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The publication analyses the regulation of the right of defence in Bulgaria and explores the principle of equality of the parties in the pre-trial phase. For the purposes of the study the authors present the system of judicial and investigative bodies as well as the most important characteristics of the criminal proceedings, in particular of the pre-trial proceedings. The study discusses the rights of the defence counsels and their procedural role and outlines a number of problems that attorneys face in defending their clients during the criminal proceedings.
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The publication analyses and assesses the legal framework on countering organised crime and examines the problems, which arise in its practical application. On this basis, recommendations are made to improve the legislation and bring it into conformity with international standards and the existing good practices, as well as to overcome the weaknesses in the application of law which impede the detection and punishment of organised criminal activity or infringe fundamental principles of criminal procedure and the rights of the participants in it.
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The current publication analyses the findings of the survey on public trust in Bulgarian police and courts, including personal assessments about the level of corruption in these institutions and the subjective perceptions of fear of crime. Two main factors are moulding the public trust: the state institutions’ effectiveness, their procedural justice and their distributive fairness towards citizens, as well as institutions’ legitimacy, the legality of their actions and the shared moral principles, which build up the obligation to respect the rules and the decisions of these institutions. The publication suggests that Bulgaria should introduce a system of indicators for assessing the public trust in the criminal justice system. These indicators would be instrumental for the more comprehensive definition of the problems, which criminal justice institutions face, and for more effective monitoring of public opinion fluctuations.
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The report uses a crime victimization survey as an alternative analytical tool to make an independent assessment of the crime situation in Bulgaria for the period 2001–2004. The crime victimization survey polls people’s experiences with crime. Unlike official government crime statistics, the regular crime victimization surveys help the police and government authorities, as well as the public to understand: • whether the official police crime data reflect the real crime rate and crime trends; • the volume of the unreported crime; • the reasons victims do not report crimes to the police; • whether the police avoids registering reported crimes; • the profile of the social groups that are most at risk of falling victims to crime.
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International organisations, national governments and human rights NGOs exercise various types of monitoring of the penitentiary systems. In order to quantify their results, there are some generally accepted indicators (such as the number of inmates per 100.000 citizens), but in many specific areas like healthcare, employment, security and safety, such indicators have never been applied. Therefore, those monitoring efforts will substantially benefit from an instrument capable of supplying comparable and easy-to-use data on the situation in prisons. To address this need, the Center for the Study of Democracy, in cooperation with the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the Observatory on the Penal System and Human Rights with the University of Barcelona, the Law Institute of Lithuania and Association Droit au Droit, developed a Prison Conditions Monitoring Index (PCMI) – a system of indicators translating into comparable figures the situation in different prisons. In the end of 2014, the PCMI was piloted in several prisons in Bulgaria, Germany and Lithuania to test its operability and analyse the potential use of the results it generates. The present report elaborates on the methodology underlying the PCMI and offers a summary of the results of its pilot implementation. It is intended for a broad audience of readers including policy makers, prison staff, lawyers, social workers, academics and NGOs interested in the topic of prison monitoring.
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This publication reviews the existing practices of courts’ performance measurement and criminal cases management based on the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, quality care, benchmarking, result orientation and accountability. These efforts are considered on supranational and national level as two components of the process of implementing a quality model in the justice sector, growing increasingly intense at EU level. At national level, the report examines the achievements in implementing performance indicators in England and Wales, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, France and Spain, as well as in Romania. The normative, policy and strategic framework of Bulgaria and Poland is also tackled in order to cover the prospects for introduction of such indicators in the two target countries.
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The issue of imprisonment vs. alternative penalties has been debated in various European countries during the last decades, and ambulant sanctions have been heavily on the rise. Community sentences and other alternatives to imprisonment are regarded as modern instruments for the rehabilitation of offenders. The objective of the present study is to examine the scope of application of penalties without deprivation of liberty as compared to imprisonment as well as to identify promising practices of alternative criminal sanctioning in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain and Lithuania. As this study covers several European countries, the comparative perspective suggests itself nearly as a matter of course. In this connection, it seems reasonable to describe the existing ambulant sanctions of the different member states involved, taking into account their legal arrangement and their relation within the system of penal sanctions including their relation to the deprivation of liberty. It in addition appears sensible to describe and compare these ambulant sanctions with reference to their contribution to the re-socialisation or rehabilitation of those subjected to them as well as with special attention to the involvement of civil society in their execution. In a further step, promising practices in connection with ambulant sanctions could be highlighted which may be recommended for imitation by other member states. Such an approach proves to be impossible for multiple reasons, though, and it would be inadequate just to make such an attempt. There are exemplary references to ambulant sanctions in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania and Spain. This is due to the fact that scientists from these countries have taken part in the realisation of this project but not necessarily because of specific outstanding features of their sanction systems in comparison with other member states.
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Individual conduct involves the orientation of actions in a certain way by making a decision. The attempt to establish the unique and appropriate purpose of the action is based on the intention to achieve that goal, followed by the elaboration of the mental plan for the realization of the action. In the deliberation, certain processes are underway to investigate the conditions for carrying out the criminal activity, assessing its effects in the objective reality. Following the analysis of the meanings, the reasons and the purpose pursued, the mental plan for the concrete realization of the criminal activity is finalized by making the decision to commit the crime. Finalizing the decision is followed by its execution to achieve the goal pursued, the aggressor using is hull psychophysical ability, knowledge, skills and ability in adopting a method of action. The manifestation of will is realized when the individual acts knowingly, even if the purpose of his actions coincides with the interests and needs of others. The guilt appears to be a force contrary to the manifestation of freedom of each individual, considered as the original behavioral form of any collectivity that opposes block of opposite behavior.
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A juvenile detention centre is commonly associated with a prison for under-age offenders, a place of detention for dangerous juvenile delinquents. This volume abolishes this stereotype. It shows juvenile delinquents through the prism of their tragic family histories and psychological and social deficits they manifest; most importantly, however, it demonstrates the wide range and comprehensiveness of social rehabilitation programmes offered by juvenile detention centres and shelters. It provides a description of thematically arranged programmes applied by social rehabilitation staff, including those connected with leisure time (e.g., canoeing, windsurfing, and biking camps), animal care (animal-assisted therapy), theatre, music, arts, sociotherapy, promotion of family life (e.g., baby manikin care training), voluntary social work (e.g., with juvenile offenders taking care of disabled children), and many others. The volume is addressed both to practitioners (as a resource book with detailed activities plans) and to scholars/theoreticians (psychologists, social rehabilitation academic teachers, and students who take psychology and/or social rehabilitation pedagogy as their majors).
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The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia (HCS) continued monitoring the prison system reforms in 2015, i.e. the reform of the institutions for the enforcement of criminal sanctions in Serbia. The project entitled "Continued monitoring of the prison system reforms" was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders. Visits to the institutions for the enforcement of criminal sanctions and offices for alternative sanctions were accomplished with the permission and support of the Ministry of Justice and the Directorate for Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions, while the visits to the detainment units were accomplished with the license and support of the presidents of higher courts with jurisdictions over the territory in which they are located. The expert team performing the monitoring of the institutions for the enforcement of criminal sanctions comprised the lawyers from the Helsinki Committee, Ljiljana Palibrk and Jelena Mirkov, full-time professor at the Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation Dr Zoran Ilić and a specialist of general practice medicine, Dr Aleksandra Bezarević. During the project that took part in the second half of the 2014, the Helsinki Committee team visited six institutions in the competence of the Directorate for Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions at the Ministry of Justice: five penitentiaries (in Niš, Sremska Mitrovica, Zabela, Požarevac and Valjevo) and Special Prison Hospital in Belgrade. In addition, Offices for Alternative Sanctions in these cities were also visited. The continuation of the project in 2015 encompassed visits to seven district prisons in Subotica, Kragujevac, Belgrade, Zrenjanin, Novi Sad, Smederevo and Pančevo and two visits to penitentiaries in Sombor and Padinska Skela. In 2015, the Helsinki Committee team also visited six offices for alternative sanctions in Subotica, Sombor, Kragujevac, Novi Sad, Smederevo and Pančevo.
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Cooperating or betraying – what pays off more? Are you able not to overeat if you eat from a shared plate? Are you saving up for retirement? What is the point of forgiving? How many grandchildren do unfaithful women have? Is evolution going forward? The first volume of Munice popular science series provides an unusual insight into game theory. It focuses on one of the most interesting problems of the interdisciplinary field: the prisoner’s dilemma. Fresh and swift, it explains its principles with the help of many original pictures and schemes.
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As parents, we often ignore the many problems that adolescents face, believing that it always happens to other children, and that it will never happen to us. Unfortunately, today we are increasingly dealing with the consequences of such problems. That is why identifying a problem is as important as solving it. One of the raising problems of Bosnian society is the delinquent behavior of young people, which is becoming a symbol of growing up in a dysfunctional society, and a subculture that is increasingly accepted by young people. Violent behavior, criminal acts, the need to be in the company of older criminals, drugs and alcohol consumption, dropping out of regular schooling are just some of the accompanying phenomena of delinquent behavior of young people. The disturbed value system and the anomie of society create ideal conditions for the development of behavioral disorders of children and young people. Juvenile delinquency is a phenomenon that is the result of inadequate socialization, upbringing and growing up conditions of the child. However, when it happens, it is necessary to apply the most effective educational measures in order to suppress and correct such behavior. In some situations when certain procedures and educational measures did not give positive results or when serious criminal offenses were committed, juveniles are sent to a correctional facility and juvenile prison. Such institutions seek to resocialize juvenile offenders, to change their criminal attitudes and behavior, build an acceptable value system, complete primary education and vocational training, as well as build work habits and develop certain competencies and social skills.This scientific monograph represents the desire of the author with rich experience in working with juvenile delinquents to transfer his knowledge to students who are being educated for one of the helping professions. The book gives a scientific perception of how to re-educate minors, and what are the procedures and stages in working with them. This book is actually, to a large extent, a combination of pedagogy and law, but also of numerous other social sciences that deal with this issue. In addition to the legal framework on criminal sanctions imposed on juveniles, a pedagogical overview of the role and importance of re-educational treatment on which the success of re-socialization of juveniles depends is given.
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Modern societies are associated with the constant flow and acceptance of information and communication technologies at home, in the workplace, in the process of education, even in recreational activities. The development of new technologies has not only challenged human rights, but also politics and society in general. Even more importantly, this new technological level has also empowered transnational corporations operating in the digital environment as hosting providers to perform quasi-public functions in the transnational context. New technologies have the potential to make significant positive contributions to the prevention, promotion, and protection of human rights and democratization, decentralization, and digitalization of politics and the advancement of society as a whole.
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In order to create a better society, due importance must be given to persons deprived of their liberty, in the sense of changing their behavior, so that in the end they no longer commit antisocial acts. As a result, the necessary attention must be paid to the development of appropriate educational and social programs, as well as to places of detention. Thus, as we will show below, the architecture of the penitentiary should be different, both inside and out. We cannot achieve the expected resocialization if we do not adapt the construction of detention units and educational programs to a positive purpose and not to a punitive one.
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This monograph is a sociopedagogical study of the experience of parents of prisoners. In analyzing the issue of family crisis in prison, I looked at the perspective of fathers and mothers of incarcerated sons. In my analysis I used the biographical method, as proposed by such researchers as Fritz Schütze or Tom Wengraf. The main aim of this study was to identify the ways in which the subjects define their own life experiences. I was interested in the process of assigning meanings to various life events. Within the obtained narrations I recognized remedial and adaptation strategies undertaken by parents of prisoners. The results of the analysis allow me to answer the question: how do family members cope with the experience of imprisonment and how do they construct their own identity in the face of this event? The study consists of three main parts. Part I is a theoretical and methodological introduction to the research context. Part II is the author's study of the problem (description of the results of the analyses devoted directly to the experiences of the parents of prisoners). Part III is a kind of summary of methodological dilemmas and the process of conducting interviews.
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Goli otok je mjesto obilježeno represijom jugoslavenskog komunističkog režima nad tisućama pojedinaca koji su na otoku bili zatočeni. Negostoljubivi i nenaseljeni otok između Raba i Senja predstavlja jedno od simbolički najvažnijih mjesta u suvremenoj povijesti Hrvatske, odnosno bivše Jugoslavije. No od nekadašnjeg logora, kasnije zatvora na Golom otoku, ostale su tek derutne i devastirane zgrade po kojima zimi pasu ovce, a ljeti šetaju turisti u potrazi za iskustvom “jadranskog Alcatraza” koje im prodaju turističke agencije i lokalni brodari. Iako su za Goli otok gotovi svi u Hrvatskoj čuli, rijetki o njemu mogu reći više od nekoliko smislenih rečenica. Jedan od važnijih razloga ovog nesrazmjera je i donedavni manjak širokoobuhvatnih znanstvenih istraživanja Golog otoka. Objavom knjige “Povijest Golog otoka” dr. Martina Previšića početkom 2019. godine učinjen je veliki iskorak u znanstvenom istraživanju ove važne teme. No Previšićeva knjiga od šestotinjak stranica svojim opsegom uvelike nadilazi potrebe za informiranjem prosječnog posjetitelja, odnosno šire javnosti.
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