Democracy in Europe Criminal Justice - Essay Example

Book Loader, L. (2002) Policing, Securitization and Democracy in Europe’ Criminal Justice, Vol.2, No.2, pp. 125-153 Young people on the margins are only partially accepting of advise in the face of their own deprivation. These marginalized youth serve to reinforce preconceived ideas held by police regarding an adversarial relationship, reducing the ability of police to sympathise with the conditions youth find themselves in and reducing the parental attitude that could lead to a more beneficial relationship. Although they go out of their way to avoid police, they still recognize the police are necessary to uphold the social order, but they do not recognize them as having any other benefit to their lives. Police involvement is seen as necessary in cases of murder, child abuse and obvious injustice, but in terms of everyday activities, youth perceive that police do not take the time to properly assess the situation before jumping to a conclusion and that they should be walking the streets more rather than driving around in cars. The research suggests stories among young people regarding what good policing might be are rare while stories regarding what bad policing is are very common. Both recognize communication might be an answer to improving the relationship, but little opportunities are forthcoming. Book 2 – Arlacchi, P. (1998) ‘Some Observations on illegal Markets’ in Ruggiero, V. South, N. and Taylor, L. The New European Criminology. Crime and Social Order in Europe (London/New York: Routledge), pp 203- 215 Laws defining illegal products and services began to be developed as a reaction to the slave and opium trades in the 18th century. With the introduction of these laws, there has been increased activity in illegal markets as profit rates for these items have jumped. Illegal markets share many of the same attributes with legal markets and consists of two main components: the competitive sector and the oligopolistic sector who has the ability to combine economic, political and military resources. Where illegal markets differ is in the frequent presence of multifaceted organizational entities, high transaction costs that foster invisible exchange networks and the absence of a formal apparatus that works to ensure transactions are handled smoothly. This activity depends on available capital, violence and inaction on the part of enforcing agencies. These criminal networks are hidden in commercial diasporas, communication links created by extensive migration and power networks. Book 3 – Cartier-Bresson, J. (1997) ‘Corruption Networks, Transaction Security and Illegal Social Exchange’ Political Studies, XLV, pp. 463-476 Corruption becomes possible when an agent, a principal and a third party whose gains and losses depend upon the agent come together. The agent is corruptible to the extent that he can conceal his corruption from the principle and becomes corrupt when he sacrifices the interests of the principle to his own benefit, breaking the law. Measures to reduce corruption include inducing loyalty through salary policies, using the threat of sanctions to make the consequences of exposure more serious and monitoring agents activities by systematic audit policies in order to increase the likelihood of detection. Additional benefit can be gained by adding rules which reinforce competition between politicians (provided that challengers are pushed into denouncing corruption and pressure groups are established legally and openly in an environment where voters are vigilant and interested), measures aimed at improving both the precision of public demands and competition between firms, and steps which would maintain competition between administrative departments. Book 4 – Lewis, R. (1998) ‘Drugs, War and Crime in the Post-Soviet Balkans’ Criminal Business. The outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia opened, rather than closed, new routes for drug traffickers into new territories and enabled them to take advantage of political change through the loosening of governmental control while the deregulation of banking systems facilitate the laundering of funds thus raised, placing a large portion of a country’s wealth and power in the hands of criminals. Most large scale drug operations are still in the hands of Turkish cartels. The demise of Yugoslavia is discussed with particular emphasis on guns trades, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia and how the black market contributed to the end result. Serbia destroyed the wealth base, Croat middlemen also had an interest in maintaining war while unconventional trading took place among military and paramilitary groups against each other. Arms trafficking and a proliferation of exiles and migrants have made finding avenues for drug trafficking easier to obtain for the traffickers and harder to control by the enforcement agencies while drug use numbers continue to climb. Book 5 – Della Porta, D. (1993) ‘Milan: Immoral Capital’ in Hellman, S. and Pasquino, G. (ed.) Italian Politics: A Review. Volume 8 London/New York: pinter, pp. 98-115 Corrupt exchanges involve aggregates of administrators and entrepreneurs, business cartels become ‘representatives’ of public officials. The ‘business politician is characterized by a conception of politics as normal “business”, moving in the shadows, spending a large portion of their day organizing illicit affairs. They have a high degree of brazenness, a lot of arrogance and no concern for cultivating administrative competence, instead rewarding loyalty with position. Business politicians are also able to cultivate and shape consensus, build networks of friends and clients and amass resources in the shape of blackmail and loyalties. They have the ability to be very efficient and to distribute favours to the most beneficial agencies, thereby corrupting these as well. Kickbacks are used to finance the expenses necessary for successful careers, for the formation of proxies, for distribution and for cooperation from other parties. Evidence exists that threats made to uncooperative businessmen are carried out, but those who agree are taken care of through other kickbacks and favours that are awarded based on their position within the party rather than competency. Book 6 – Kurtulus, E. (4 October 2004) ‘Theories of Sovereignty: An Interdisciplinary Approach’ Global Society, Vol.18, No.4, pp 347-370 Sovereignty is a difficult concept to understand because it’s meaning is based on other ambiguous terms, epistemological understandings in scientific theory are changing and conceptual theory is also changing. There are two dimensions of sovereignty theories: the unit of analysis and the nature of theoretical accounts. Unit of analysis deals with the sovereign organ within the state, the sovereign state and the relations between sovereign entities. Nature of theoretical accounts offers descriptive explanations of how things are, normative statements of how things should be and theories that deal with the combination of descriptive and normative statements. The six ideal theories include descriptive theories of sovereignty at the intra-state level, normative theories of sovereignty at the intra-state level, descriptive theories of sovereignty at the state level, normative theories of sovereignty at the state level, descriptive theories of sovereignty at the inter-state level and normative theories of sovereignty at the inter-state level. Book 7 – Knaus, G. and Martin, F. (2003) ‘Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Travails Of The European Raj’ Journal of Democracy, Vol.14, No.3, pp 60-74 Victimization in general and victimization in war are defined and described as having both direct and indirect consequences on mass and individual levels. The paper is both a scientific investigation and an emotional journey to understand the logic and tragedy. Political conditions in the region during the past decade are briefly described as well as the use of violence to enforce the social order preferred by the unstable ruling classes. Discussion is divided by forms of victimization including who is doing the victimization (organized armed forces, paramilitary groups, criminal groups), ways and means of victimization (physical violence, fear and uncertainness), time of victimization (pre-war, in war, in refuge), values destroyed or jeopardized (fundamental meaning for people, human life, questions of dignity, family structure, loss of possessions, loss of social roles and positions), characteristics of the victim and frequency of victimization (individuals, social communities, family, human habitats, the state). Read More