Crime Policy In Europe

This volume represents the first attempt to systematically compare organised crime concepts, as well as historical and contemporary patterns and control policies in thirteen European countries. These include seven ‘old’ EU Member States, two ‘new’ members, a candidate country, and three non-EU countries. Based on a standardised research protocol, thirty-three experts from different legal and social disciplines provide insight through detailed country reports. On this basis, the editors compare organised crime patterns and policies in Europe and assess EU initiatives against organised crime.

Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime. The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime). The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps. The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

This publication contains a number of papers which highlight examples of good practice in relation to criminal policy in member states of the Council of Europe, set out under the headlines of: crime prevention, mediation and other community sanctions, the prison system, and criminal procedure. Many of the papers are written by members of the Criminological Scientific Council of the Council of Europe (CSC).

Europe in a time of change

The EU now possesses a clear legal basis for taking action on criminal law matters and steering the policy and practice of Member States in relation to crime and criminal law. However, for what is now an important area of law, there remains a striking absence or uncertainty regarding its theoretical basis, its legitimacy and its conceptual vocabulary. This book offers a review of the significance of EU criminal law and crime policy as a rapidly emerging phenomenon in European law and governance. Bringing together an international set of contributors, the book questions the nature, role and objectives of such 'criminal law', its relationship with other areas of EU policy and law, and the established rules of criminal law and criminal justice at the Member State level. Taking up such subjects as the application of criminal law across national boundaries and in the broader European context, effective enforcement, and the working out of a new European policy, the book helps to structure an increasingly significant subject in law which is still finding its direction. The book will be of great use and interest to researchers and students of EU law, criminal justice, and criminology.

In this book legal and criminological scholars offer advanced analyses of the exercise of the substantive criminal law competences of the EU.

"Crime Policy in Europe" brings together fourteen policy specialists from across. It covers: existing and recent trends of crime; the importance of victim concerns; crime prevention and policing; the role of the prosecution and sentencing; different kinds of sanctions ranging from imprisonment to community service and other measures. The prosecution, imprisonment and rehabilitation of criminals has changed dramatically in Europe over the past ten years. New pressures are forcing many of its philosophies and procedures to be re-evaluated. This book explains why many of the new decisions being taken and options that are available to the courts.

EU criminal law is one of the fastest evolving, but also challenging, policy areas and fields of law. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and advanced analysis of EU criminal law as a structurally and constitutionally unique policy area and field of research. With contributions from leading experts, focusing on their respective fields of research, the book is preoccupied with defining cross-border or ‘Euro-crimes’, while allowing Member States to sanction criminal behaviour through mutual cooperation. It contains a web of institutions, agencies and external liaisons, which ensure the protection of EU citizens from serious crime, while protecting the fundamental rights of suspects and criminals. Students and scholars of EU criminal law will benefit from the comprehensive research present in this Handbook. National and EU policy-makers, as well as judges, defence lawyers and human rights lawyers will find the analysis of current legal action, combined with proposed solutions, useful to their work

This book explores the relationship between crime, law and popular culture in Europe from the sixteenth century onwards. How was crime understood and dealt with by ordinary people and to what degree did they resort to or reject the official law and criminal justice system as a means of dealing with different forms of criminal activity? Overall, the volume will serve to illuminate how experiences of and attitudes to crime and the law may have corresponded or differed in different locations and contexts as well as contributing to a wider understanding of popular culture and consciousness in early modern and modern Europe.

Europe is caught between the extreme diversity of national systems and the increasing complexity of supranational institutions. Some fear the worst. They claim that diversity is linked to insecurity because, from one country to another, the sanction for the same crime varies considerably. Several years' experience has shown in cases of transborder crimes, that the development of mutual assistance pacts improves the efficiency of the national systems. Beyond that, it seems inevitable that at least in the area of frauds against Community financial interests, we will arrive at a system of Community penal and administrative sanctions to meet the demand of the European Parliament, on the condition that the sanctions respect the democratic principles of legality and an independent judiciary. Starting from the plurality of European legal sources (Community law, the Conventions of the Council of Europe, the Schengen Accords, the Conference on Security and Cooperation) and their underlying logic (national interests European interests, security/protection of the fundamental rights), this volume examines their impact on the subjects of the Maastricht Treaty. After describing practices of control and sanction, as well as procedures and guarantees, it tackles the ultimate question of common guiding principles. The bet being that, beyond the bottom line of current penal policy, could be the design for - in the singular, no longer the plural - a criminal policy for the Europe of tomorrow.