Editorial
by Thomas Gilly
The papers that are
collected in this issue focus on the ethical relevance of crime and criminal
justice issues.
Two of the papers we have
collected are substantially concerned with the relevance of ethics and
deontology to crime prevention and other important issues of policing. They are
altogether inherent parts of a series of articles that started with David
Patterson’s paper “Consequences of Profiling for Crime/Terrorism: Ethical
Dilemmas”. It is published in the first issue of the second
Volume of our journal.
This issue is also central to a
power-point presentation that we have decided to publish on the ERCES web-site http://www.erces.com. To find it click simply
on the link “Crime News and Events”
The three other papers,
instead of focussing on the practical dimension of ethics and the impact of
ethics upon the police and policing, provide a theoretical or even a
philosophical perspective to the debate on ethics and crime and justice issues.
Since both perspectives
are complementary parts of the same debate, it was not easy to choose the one
to be placed in front; together both perspectives hold for the dialectics
between theory and practice that precludes any sorts of primacy. The
circumstance that this issue starts with the theoretical part of the ethical
debate that it is involved in issues of crime and criminal justice is basically
the tributary of a didactical postulate: To explain crime, criminologists must
first of all, have a more or less clear idea about the nature of the subject
that they are committed to explain; there is a requirement for a general
agreement about the concept of crime. Otherwise criminologists are likely to
explain deviance, not crime. It is as it is in the schools and universities:
The teacher’s lesson on the impact of the pollution upon the climate, the
lesson on ecological disasters, presupposes that the schoolgirls and boys
possess a basic geographical knowledge
“
Ethics of crime – what does this mean?” Obviously the
question points at the relevance of ethics for the concept of crime and its
various meanings. Since the notion of “concept” refers to “conceptualization”,
the question that introduces “From the ancient greek
“crime”(krima) as a intellectual error to the
Christian “crime” (crimen) as a moral sin”, by
Michael Bakaoukas is a clear announcement of the
paper’s major concern. The paper is substantially concerned with the historical
process that consists in the development and elaboration of the concept of
“crime”. Michael Bakaoukas provides for a study in
depth of the shift that has affected, in a substantial manner, the meaning of
crime. The transformation is the process that supplants the inherent political,
sociological and finally the rational connotation of the ancient Greek (and
Latin) concept by that of the moral connotation as it is typical for the
Christian (Greek and Latin) tradition.
Regardless of the paper’s
historical and social and legal philosophical interest, Michael Bakaoukas’ study, undoubtedly, is a major contribution to
the history and the actual debate about the ethics of crime. He
shift of ethics focal center from a social-political rationale to moral
essentialism is indeed an issue that is extremely relevant to ethics.
“A theoretical
criminology approach to criminal acts and deviant behaviour in the
International Space Station” by Julian Hermida is the
second theoretical paper that we have collected.
Julian Hermida’s guideline
hypothesis is that the unique characteristics of
the space environment, together with the exceptional social factors of all
involved actors, demand new and specific theories to
explain criminal behavior in outer space. Since crime and deviance, in such an
environment, can be reasonably expected to have a substantial criminological
implication, the major’s major aim is to
see, by means of an I depth study of the most important theories, which of one,
if any, may be applied to criminal and deviant behavior in outer space.
Obviously
Hermida’s paper is foremost relevant to theoretical
criminology; insofar it provides for an important contribution regarding the
construction of theory in the field of criminology and deviance theory. And
yet, the paper, by focusing on multi-culturally diverse space experiences and
environmental diversity, points at an issue that is central to ethics: habit
and spatial life environment. The papers relevance for ethics consists of the
demonstration of actuality of Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethic (Book II 1-3) and its relevance to the construction and development of
criminological theory.
In
“What can criminologists learn from Fritz Lang?”, I
explore the the relevance of Fritz Lang’s movie “M”
to fundamental issues in criminology, deviance theory and criminal justice. In
this paper I discuss the rationale and the fundamentals of (criminal) justice.
Justice as a case for ethics is one of the paper’s major concern.
“Police ethics in
and the practical impact of the French police code.
Considering the code’s application to every daily-life police work, the paper
points at the discrepancy between theory and practice.
The paper demonstrates a major concern for
the dynamics of police ethics. The shift from ethics to security is one of the
most important aspects of such dynamics.
Obviously the paper’s relevance for ethics
consists of ( i) the confrontation of a deontological
police code with daily life police ethics; (ii) the question whether and to
which degree a police deontology is or is not desirable from the ethical/legal
and practical viewpoint.
The study is based on the experience of the
author’s membership in police union.
We conclude this
issue with “Comparative European and
American Drug Control Policy: An Examination of Efficacy and Contributing
Factors”, by William P. Bloss.
The
observation that is central to this paper is as follows:
Much
of the global demand-side drug control policy has been influenced by an
American-led prohibitionist ideology. However, some European states have
advocated a public health "harm reduction" approach that embraces
prevention, education, and treatment as a means of reducing drug user demand. .
This
paper examines the divergent approaches among crime control and public health
ideologies in terms of their efficacy in reducing drug user demand. Using US
and European official data measures of population drug use and legislated
policies as indicators of policy intent and efficacy, the study analyzes the
ideological direction and effectiveness of drug demand control policies and
their practical effect on police and other government organizations to
implement such policies. As noted by Krzysztof (2004) and others, European drug
demand control policy is not as unified as the American prohibitionist
approach, and therefore, numerous models have emerged. The findings of the
paper not only support this contention of policy diversity but further conclude
that socio-political factors may exert greater ideological influence on
European state drug policies than American prohibitionist perspectives. And,
the findings show efforts to measure realistic demand reduction often produce
inconclusive results regarding the merits of competing policies.
Regardless
of the paper’s high relevance to comparative research on drug demand control
ideology, the author provides an in depth study to the actual debate about
realistic and efficacious drug demand control strategies.
Since
the paper’s major concern is (i) to critically
compare and to evaluate the ideological factor which is involved in the US
American prohibitionist approach and in the European approach, (ii) to provide
for findings that are praxis-relevant, it is obvious that it is a major
contribution to the ethics of public health and drug demand control strategies.
Our editorial concludes with
two advertisements:
The
first one concerns the power-point I’ve already mentioned at the beginning of
my editorial
“Sensitive aspects of the development
of criminal registration systems”, by Andris Kairiôs provides for an in depth study of the sensitive aspects
and inherent ethical problems of criminal registration systems. The study is
based on the experience of the Ministry of the
By pointing at (i) the ethically legitimated collection of sensitive data;
(ii) the inherent ethical problems in sensitive data collection and (iii) the
need for risk-management, Andris Kairiôs
power-point clearly demonstrates its relevance for applied ethics.
The second
advertisement concerns the announcement of the 2nd International
ERCES Conference that will be scheduled In April 2005.
The ERCES web-site
will shortly provide for all information, regarding registration, location,
call for papers etc.
On
We wish you all a happy and a peaceful new 5766 – Shanah Tovah!