Crime And Criminological Knowledge In The Balkans

Crime And Criminological Knowledge In The Balkans Presented by: Prof. Kalac Date: 19 May 2021 Understand - Detect - Find - Check - What is Balkan criminology? What do we do? Why? How? Benefits? - Network of academics, researchers and experts on crime in/from the Balkans, acknowledging that the region is a criminological space sui generis - Understand the phenomenon - Detect the challenge/problem - Find a solution - Check if it works Why? How? - Early on (2010) we detected a criminological vacuum - Criminological knowledge was scarce, scattered and being produced unsystematically - Solution: capacity building through research - 2012 max Planck funded research group - • Joint research projects • Joint publications (criminology, victimology, penology, violence) • Annual scientific conferences • Joint ESC involvement + ISRD3, ESB etc. 2019-2021 funded by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime's Resilience Fund Benefits? - How can Balkan Criminology contribute to global criminology? What are the benefits of our engagement? - Fil empirical gap (black hole) on crime and criminal justice topics in the region - Revival of comparative criminology in the Balkans (G. Meško) - Precondition for crim. Theory testing/development - Southernizing (European) criminology • ESC (membership, WGs, panels, conference hosting, board) • ESB 6th Edition (6 countries) • ISRD 3 and 4 • OC and Illicit Markets research • BC Mappings (criminology, victimology, penology, violence) State Of Art - Mapping the Criminological Landscape (OA book) • Criminological research setting (southernized) • Criminological research capacities (southernized) • Criminological research topics (northernized) • Criminological research standards (northernized) - Mapping the Victimological Landscape - Mapping the Penological Landscape - Violence in the Balkans → the BHS Filling Gaps... - The Balkan Homicide Study (BHS) provides original empirical data from 2,073 prosecution and court case files on 2,416 offenders and 2,379 victims from: - • Croatia • Hungary • Kosovo • North Macedonia • Romania • Slovenia 2 main avenues of research • (Lethal) violence as a normative and social construct • The empirical reality of violence Some Preliminary Key Findings... - Findings do not indicate that homicides are a unique phenomenon, something essentially different than lethal violence or the deadly outcome of violence - No major differences between attempted (58%) and completed (42%) homicides regarding the place where the incidents occurred, their micro-locations, the time of day of the incident, the period of the week, the number of offenders and victims, (non)premeditated commission of the offense, the offenders' main motives, the general victim-offender relationship and the offenders' alcohol intoxication tempore creminis - Most (lethal) violence in the BHS occurs in rural cities, closely followed by urban ones, with the least taking place in the countries' capitals that are also the biggest cities in each of the sampled countries - The majority of (lethal) violence is committed in a private micro- location in the evening (18.00-24.00) and afternoon (12.00-18.00) on the weekends and the day prior/after the weekends - The vast majority of (lethal) violence involves only one offender and only one victim - Slightly more incidents are premeditated than committed affectively, with approx. Half of the offenders' motives remaining unclear, followed by revenge and greed - The victim-offender relationship is commonly one between non- strangers, whereas approx. The same share of offenders was alcohol intoxicated tempore creminis in case of attempted as well as completed homicides - As throughout Europe, (lethal) violence between complete strangers is the exception (less than 15% of cases) and most stranger-violence can be classified as other public violence, followed by thievery and bar violence - The majority of (lethal) violence in all countries except for Hungary involves nondomestics (friends/acquaintances), whereby the findings for Hungary (more domestics) might be explained by the comparably atypically high share of female offenders (17%), for whom we in the BHS overall found to most frequently commit other private and separation/divorce (lethal) violence - Stranger-violence is predominantly committed by males, whereas out of all offenders only 15% of males committed intimate partner violence, compared to as much as 39% of females committing intimate partner violence - Despite the easier availability of firearms, due to the region's recent war-legacy, we found that in the BHS only 13% of offenders used firearms, compared to as much as 62% who used cold weapons or even 21% who used no weapons at all - Similarly, the organized crime violence nexus could not be confirmed by BHS findings, as even after adopting a very broad concept of organized crime related (lethal) violence, only 1.6% of all offenders could be at least vaguely linked to the criminal underworld → most likely a consequence of unknown offenders in such cases, resulting in their no-show in the BHS sample (no prosecution against unknown persons) - Violent Balkan images and stereotypes? → most likely a consequence of lacking cultural knowledge needed for contextualization and interpretation of violent incidents Beyond 'Simply' Filling Gaps... - Clearly, we have successfully filled some of the many empirical gaps in criminological research - Taking it to the next level • Theory testing/development • Setting own/southern research agenda • Criminological education and training • Infusing own/southern topics into European/global criminology  Academic corruption (research funding, publishing etc.)  Research standards and equal opportunities - Main obstacle: lack of funding opportunities and (institutionalized) sustainability - The Balkans as an uncharted territory with (almost) unlimited possibilities - • Particularities of how the Balkans work in terms of access to data and files • Comparatively low costs of research, field work etc. • Highly motivated scholars eager to engage in empirical research projects • Most 'standard' criminological topics not yet (fully) covered Doing empirical research in and on the Balkans is challenging and exhausting, but also tremendously rewarding, esp. if one considers...