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Privatization of Criminal Justice in Eastern Europe
... Quantitative discretionary decisions research is lacking in Continental, and especially in Eastern Europe. Therefore, we believe that the results of our study will provide new insights into the factors influencing the discretionary decisions of probation officers in the country of the Eastern European region, which is characterized by specific legal, social, historical, and political contexts (Nikartas, 2020). ...
This paper investigates Lithuanian probation officers’ discretionary decisions on probation violations under strict legal regulation. Based on a quantitative survey, this paper analyses hypothetical discretionary decisions according to the type of violation committed by the probationer. The relationship between discretionary decisions and variables such as the probationer’s risk level and sociodemographic characteristics are also analysed. The study revealed that, despite strict legal regulations, which generally require severe action for probation violations, probation officers tend to make more lenient decisions. The study also found that violation type, offender risk level, and probation officer’s age are potential predictors of discretionary decisions.
Analysing the evolution of imprisonment and community sanctions in Europe from 1990 to 2010 this article tests whether community sanctions have been used as alternatives to imprisonment or as supplementary sanctions. The results show that both the number of persons serving community sanctions and the number of inmates have continuously increased in almost all European countries during the period studied. A comparison with the evolution of crime rates shows that the latter cannot explain such trends and suggests that, instead of being alternatives to imprisonment, community sanctions have contributed to widening the net of the European criminal justice systems. The analyses also show a wide diversity in the use of community sanctions across Europe where, in 2010, the ratio between inmates and persons serving community sanctions varied from 2:1 to 1:3. In a comparative perspective, Finland, Norway and Switzerland seem to have found a reasonable balance between the use of imprisonment and community sanctions.