A NEW LEGAL SOLUTION ON RECIDIVISM IN SERBIАN CRIMINAL LEGISLATION

From the adoption of the Criminal Code in 2006 until the latest amendments of 2019, the Serbian criminal legislation treated recidivism as an optional aggravating circumstance, which had its specific legal status in comparison with other mitigating and aggravating circumstances. According to the new legal solution, instead of being optional, recidivism has become a mandatory aggravating circumstance, which together with clearly specified conditions for harsher penalties narrows down the possibility of free judicial decision-making when meting out punishment. The paper answers several questions: whether harsher penalties for recidivists are only the result of continuous tightening of repression at a normative level, whether and to what extent the criminal-law framework has been improved, and whether returning to some solutions, which were not normally applied in court practice, can be marked as approriate to achieve the desired degree of crime prevention. Final critical conculusion is that the new legal solution on recidivism appears regressive, given that the court is strictly bound by the law through oblitatory conditions regarding prior and persistent offending, which is in compliance with the general trend of tightening repression at the normative level and reducing the role of the court to the level of administrative application of the norm.

Youth crime as a ‘way of life’? Prevalence and criminal career correlates among a sample of juvenile detainees in Australia

For more than 60 years, scholars have often likened chronic and persistent offending to ‘living a criminal way of life’, yet these evocative motifs have not received much empirical scrutiny. In particular, the so-called criminal life-style is often conceptualized as something the chronic young offender opts into as an alternative to other pro-social pathways. Whereas for older offenders, it is something into which they find themselves trapped and unable to escape. The idea that crime is a chosen ‘way of life’ among chronic young offenders has not yet received sufficient empirical scrutiny. In this study, we use archival data of nationally representative cohort ( n = 373) of young offenders in Australian custodial centers who were each asked whether crime was their ‘way of life’. From this, we estimate its prevalence and criminal-career correlates, finding that one in three strongly identify with crime as their way of life. Self-identification is also found to be strongly correlated with Indigenous status even after controlling for different features of the juvenile criminal career. In all, our data paint a vivid portrait of a criminal identity that, for the young offender, likely signals a perceived inevitability that evolves in the context of structurally and culturally conditioned opportunities. Understanding this phenomenon among youthful offenders is important if we are to be successful in our attempts to curtail criminal continuity through desistance informed interventions.

The Effects of Residential Mobility on Criminal Persistence and Desistance during the Transition to Adulthood

Objectives: Prior research has documented that residential mobility has the potential to trigger both criminal persistence and desistance, with frequent moving often predicting persistence and long-distance moving predicting desistance. However, less work has considered this possibility during the transition to adulthood. To address this shortcoming, we assessed the effects of different residential moves on offending during this period in the life course. Methods: Using 15 waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort, a sample of youth followed from ages 12 to 32, we used mixed-effects models to examine whether frequent moving, between-county moves (a proxy for long-distance), and moving distance are associated with within-individual change in self-reported offending and arrest. Results: Findings indicated that frequent moving was not associated with persistent offending. In addition, individuals who made between-county moves showed significant within-individual reductions in self-reported offending and arrest, with those reductions emerging immediately after the move and persisting over time. Finally, individuals who moved further in distance were more likely to experience reductions in self-reported offending, although any moving distance reduced arrest. Conclusions: A long-distance residential move may serve as a turning point that facilitates reductions in self-reported offending and arrest.

Resettlement and the case for women

This article is about women caught in the cycle of persistent offending, breach and recall. We consider the resettlement challenges faced by this group of women and the extent to which these challenges can be met by the criminal justice system. We reflect on the impact of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 and of statutory post-sentence supervision on the speed of the revolving door between custody and the community. The article draws on some data from an ongoing evaluation of a supported accommodation project for women leaving prison to illustrate its argument. We also question the extent to which the probation service alone has the tools needed to reduce the likelihood of recall and return to prison and identify the importance of factors such as sentencing law and policy and the provision of housing and health services.

Youth crime as a ‘way of life’? Prevalence and criminal career correlates among a sample of juvenile detainees in Australia

For more than 60 years, scholars have often likened chronic and persistent offending to ‘living a criminal way of life’, yet these evocative motifs have not received much empirical scrutiny. In particular, the so-called criminal lifestyle is often conceptualised as something the chronic young offender opts into as an alternative to other pro-social pathways. Whereas for older offenders, it is something into which they find themselves trapped an unable to escape. The idea that crime is a chosen ‘way of life’ among chronic young offenders has not yet received sufficient empirical scrutiny. In this study, we use archival data of nationally representative cohort (n=373) of serious young offenders from Australia who were each asked whether crime was their ‘way of life’. From this, we estimate its prevalence and criminal-career correlates, finding that one in three strongly identify with crime as their way of life. Self-identification is also found to be strongly correlated with Indigenous status even after controlling for different features of the juvenile criminal career. In all, our data paint a vivid portrait of a criminal identity that, for the young offender, likely signals a perceived inevitability that evolves in the context of structurally and culturally conditioned opportunities. Understanding this phenomenon among youthful offenders is important if we are to be successful in our attempts to curtail criminal continuity through desistance informed interventions.

Comparing the criminal careers and childhood risk factors of persistent, chronic, and persistent–chronic offenders

There have been few efforts to conceptually and empirically distinguish persistent and chronic offenders, despite the prominence of these concepts in the criminological literature. Research has not yet examined if different childhood risk factors are associated with offenders who have the longest criminal careers (persistent offenders), commit the most offences (chronic offenders), or both (persistent–chronic offenders). We address this gap using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Poverty, poor school attainment, and family stress had a pervasive impact on all forms of offending in correlational analyses. Longer criminal career durations were associated with fewer childhood risk factors than was the case for chronic offenders. Chronic offenders were significantly more likely than persistent offenders to experience many environmental risks in childhood. When controlling for all other risk factors, hyperactivity and parental separation uniquely predicted persistent offending, while high daring and large family size uniquely predicted chronic offending. Our analyses point to the need for responses based on a philosophy of “proportionate universalism,” where universal multisystemic crime prevention strategies that benefit all children incorporate program components that are known to influence the unique risk factors for both persistent and chronic offending.