Criminology in Europe

Of everything that man erects and builds in his urge for living
nothing is in my eyes better and more valuable than bridges.
They are more important than houses, more sacred than shrines.
Belonging to everyone and being equal to everyone, useful,
always built with a sense, on the spot where most human needs
are crossing, they are more durable than other buildings
and they do not serve for anything secret or bad.

Ivo Andrić (Nobel prize laureate for literature, 1961)

A few years ago, an innovative criminological initiative, the “Balkan Criminology”, was launched at the ESC conference in Bilbao. This research concept on regional comparative criminology soon became “The Max Planck Partner Group for Balkan Criminology” and has since organised regional conferences and summer schools on a variety of criminological topics. To relearn about the development of criminology in the region, I recently revisited a book on the development of criminology in the Balkan countries entitled Mapping the Criminological Landscape of the Balkans: A Survey on Criminology and Crime with an Expedition into the Criminal Landscape of the Balkans. This book, edited by my colleagues from the Balkan criminology network, triggered a reminiscence about my first steps in learning about the Balkans and criminology in the region.

I have had the privilege to learn about criminology and criminological research from my colleagues from the West and the East, from the North and the South, since the beginning of the 1990s. A large majority of my research in the last two decades has focused on comparative criminology in Southeastern Europe.

About twenty years ago, being eager to learn about criminology and criminological research, I visited universities and research institutes in the region. It was not yet an “expedition” as implied in the title of the aforementioned book, but an attempt to learn about the region, especially about post-conflict societies in which crime, social disorganisation, anomie and other social problems were constants in the everyday life of the people. Step by step, comparative criminological research on some topical criminological and criminal justice issues has been growing due to joint efforts—understanding the development of formal social control; studying policing, criminal justice institutions, prisons, and crime prevention, war crimes, juvenile delinquency, organised crime, corruption, and attempts to develop democracy; emphasising the importance of professional policing and the legitimacy of policing and criminal justice; and reflecting on the importance of values of people and rulers, as well as the development of criminology in Southeastern Europe. (For more, see: Policing in Central and Eastern Europe 1996-2010, and Criminal Justice and Security in Central and Eastern Europe 2012–2016, COE — Responses to of violence in everyday life in a democratic society 2004, and Trust and Legitimacy 
in Criminal Justice: European Perspectives, 2015).

Another observation is that international institutions, including foreign embassies in countries in the region, support criminological research. Supported research topics are mostly related to corruption, trafficking in human beings, illegal trafficking of goods and services, refugees, protection of the youth, gender issues, and policing in post-conflict societies. Since the late 1990s, much has changed, but there are still many problems which attract criminological reflection and research, and must be studied carefully. These issues have been a primary focus of the Balkan Criminology Group.

In addition, after the establishment of the Balkan Criminology Group, a revival of (empirical and comparative) criminology, criminal justice and other studies were published, mainly applying Western concepts in regional and national contexts. Recently, monographs have been edited to present the development of criminological research in the Balkans (and other countries of Southeastern Europe), demonstrating that criminology is again flourishing in the region. Despite the fact that criminology had almost disappeared from the curricula in faculties of law in Central and Eastern Europe, research achievements are proving that criminological reflection and imagination have not vanished. On the contrary, criminology, victimology, penology and crime prevention have become important subjects at many schools of social sciences, especially in new schools of criminal justice, security and police academies.

In quite a short time, a significant amount of work has been done by editing collections of essays on the development of criminology, penology, violence and victimology in English. If everything goes well, a quadrilogy of Balkan criminology publications will be presented at the 2018 ESC conference in Sarajevo. For this reason, I believe that a generation of (mainly) young criminologists from the Balkans and Southeastern Europe will contribute to global criminology and policy-making in their countries.

Some countries in the region have joined the European Union in the last 15 years, which facilitated collaboration by researchers from the region with European and international research teams. While the Balkan region was formerly considered “terra incognita”, it has become more visible in the field of international criminology. Not only have scholars from the region contributed to the development of criminological thought, but researchers from other areas of Europe have also come to explore the region. Good examples of such international connections and cooperation are international and regional conferences and summer schools, which are attended by the most prominent international criminology scholars.

It was not easy to understand the social context at the beginning of my research in some Balkan countries, because the region is not a monolithic entity. On the one hand, the signs of war were visible in some countries, while on the other, life went on and there were 
no significant differences between these countries and the rest of Europe, at least at first sight. These countries are on the so-called Balkan route known for drug and human trafficking. A recent refugee influx from the Middle East has proven that ideas and practices on social control can be quite controversial. The refugee crisis especially can be seen as a test of humanity, because securitisation has become an everyday reality in the region, while social prevention is losing its role—a situation very similar to that in some Western countries.

Through my fieldwork since the 1990s, I have learned that in some environments the only rule was that there were no rules; sometimes rules are not implemented in practice; and innovation was a leading response to lofty social goals. Social differentiation, the poverty of the majority of the population, and corruption in politics and the public sector were considered significant factors for criminality. In addition to these factors, neoliberal ideas have taken over the entire region, and predatory capitalism took place in economies all over the region.

I remember reading about the Balkans and Balkanisation, meaning mainly fragmentation, destruction, depression, chaos, hatred, cheating, and social disorganisation. However, Balkanisation can also have a positive connotation regarding some dimensions of the quality of life, such as friendship, persistence, diligence of the people and their hospitality. The latter is something I wish participants at the 2018 ESC conference will experience while visiting Sarajevo.

ESC conferences, despite a small number of participants from the region, have always been a place of fruitful debates on a variety of criminological topics specific to Southeastern Europe. I believe that the 2018 conference is a unique opportunity to convey a strong message about the importance of criminology as a teaching discipline in higher education and criminological research in the region.

Gorazd Meško is Professor of Criminology and Head of the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security, University of Maribor, Ljubjana, Slovenia, and the President of the ESC