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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 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 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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Perpetrators of extreme crime often suffer from brain diseases which do not exclude legal sanity – schizophrenia and alcoholic disease. Traditional judicial practice regards them as mitigating circumstances which prevent the imposition of the gravest penalty prescribed. However, after the introduction of life imprisonment (1996) and life imprisonment without commutation (1998) judicial approaches deviate from that concept thus establishing conflicting solutions. The article argues that traditional concepts should be restored. The article is based on a case-law study and an in-depth analysis of a selection of cases.
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Under the Bulgarian Criminal law the court may impose probation as punishment or impose a probation measure during the testing period in the case of suspended sentence and early release. Once imposed they become part of the probation regime during test period and any failure to observe them triggers consequences unfavorable for the sentenced person. The adhesion of our country to the European Union in 2007 and the free movement of persons and services faced criminal justice science with new challenges. In 2012 Bulgaria transposed Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA dealing with the transfer of probation measures and the application of the principle of mutual recognition of probation decisions and alternative sanctions. The basic principles and aims of the Decision are implemented in the national legislation through the Act on the recognition, execution and forwarding of judgments and probation decisions for the purposes of supervision of the probation measures and alternative sanctions.
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Perpetrators of extreme crime usually suffer from mental health damages which do not qualify as legal insanity. The most common among them is the mental/personality disorder. Judicial approaches towards it differ from concept that it is a sufficient condition to deny the imposition of the gravest penalty to a belief that it is a sufficient ground for imposing it as it is directly related to the perpetrator’s dangerousness. The article argues that personality disorder is a mitigating circumstance which prevents courts from choosing the gravest penalty. The article is based on a case-law study and analyses in depth a selection of cases.
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The report explores the meaning of the term „conditional sentencing “. The established understanding of the term is to mean suspended execution of imposed punishment. Major part of the survey focuses on the conflict between the implied meaning that the term linguistically brings up of purely conditional and even missing element of a punishment itself and the true legal nature of this important Criminal law institute. The paper further discusses some of the legal consequences for the so called „conditionally convicted persons“ that give ground to assert that what we have is a clearly penal treatment. The report draws attention to the conclusion that the state makes use of the suspended sentence as a tool to enforce its corrective and preventive criminal law policy.
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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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Entrepreneurship can be a solution to the dilemma: “Labour is a form of education, a way of ensuring existence, gaining autonomy, a physical and mental training, a way of oppression, a form of occupational therapy, all together or …none of the variants listed?” Depending on the reference field and the perspectives offered by different specializations, work is defined as a physical or intellectual action, which develop material and emotional satisfactions. Especially in closed environments, it is practiced as a form of occupational therapy (ergotherapy), because it ensures a sense of usefulness, helping to maintain somato-psycho-emotional health. The schoolmasters highlight the formative values of work for students: evaluate the native skills and abilities, lead to the discovery of new unknown interests and talents, support the student in his perfection by inoculating the ideas of responsibility, order, discipline, etc. Before 1989, in detention environment labour was mandatory, but now, labour is an optional right. The two perspectives are diametrically opposed, and the issue was addressed only from the perspective of reduced job supply, both during detention and after release. There are few publications with strict reference to this topic. In general, the social reintegration of post-execution prisoners is addressed. At this moment, the main problem highlighted is integration/reintegration on the labour market, as the main facilitating step of maintaining the accumulations during the detention period and a primary factor for avoiding the recurrence.However, those who have served a custodial sentence do not have a "ticket" to the labour market. To be known and solved, the situation should be addressed continuously: prevention before detention, education/re-education/training / retraining during detention and placement on the labor market / retraining immediately after release.
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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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This paper is a continuation of a similar paper presented at the same scientific event last year, but with new and updated information. As a result of the health crisis, specialized authorities have been taken measures concerning the execution of sentences and educational measures depriving of liberty, respectively at the level of the Romanian penitentiary system. The information was obtained by accessing the websites of some penitentiary units, but also by conducting online interviews with various representatives appointed by several units within our penitentiary system. Additionally, I have also integrated answers received from the National Administration of Penitentiaries, following an official address sent in this regard.
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The author analyzes letters written by prisoners, detainees, and their relatives to authorities of the communist Yugoslavia. Today, these letters are being kept as archival material, and the author has analyzed the material of several archives in Belgrade and Zagreb. By using content and discourse analysis, it is revealed who were the authors of these letters, what was being asked for in the letters and in which way, and to which addresses were the authors reaching out to, as well as what was the attitude of authorities towards individuals addressing them in letters. With this paper, the author endeavors to present values of the aforementioned historical sources for researching social history and history of everyday life of the communist Yugoslavia, as well as the functionality of the historical-anthropological approach to research of history of the second half of the 20th century. In the appendix, the author provides several letters, mostly in the form of facsimiles.
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Based on existing literature and available sources, this article attempts to provide a contribution to research into the dissident movements and opposition in Socialist Yugoslavia. The phenomenon of political offenses is treated only superficially as an unavoidable introduction to the presentation of the main theme. This work seeks to shed light on the darkest corner of the Yugoslav totalitarian system, that is, the gaol, and show the attitude of the authorities toward political prisoners. The Correctional Institute in Stara Gradiška (KPD Stara Gradiška) is chosen as an example because this gaol is a synonym for the suffering and death of those individuals who were opponents of the totalitarian Yugoslav regime. An emphasis is placed on the derogatory attitude of the authorities and the penal system toward political prisoners and their psychological traumatisation in criminal surroundings.
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