Presentation of the SCRAE
Research Project
By
Dr
Thomas Albert Gilly
In many regards our conference
in
It is our duty to inform the
readers of our journal about our major concerns.
Need to engage in the value debate
in regard to threat facing our societies?
Partial in EU politics, total
in regard to the European criminological mainstream debate, the value eclipse is undoubtedly the
major cause of what happened and had to happen to the scientific community which,
when facing the new crime and insecurity complexity, demonstrated its inability
to take up the challenge. .
In this regard, the
intellectually sophisticated and otherwise exciting “cacophony” that marries
the post-modern variant of the moralizing “Robin Hood” to the “ decimal
criminology” constitutes the most dearly celebrate witness in the history of
European criminology and deviance sociology.
For historical and demographic
reasons, many European countries, namely
On that account those
countries hold for a paradigm.
But it would be an error to
believe that such problems are specifically European problems. Globalization
holds for global problems and requires global solutions, though the phenomena
vary as a function of the diverse national, political, economical and social
environments. Many problems which develop actually in
Here in
Thanks to the politics that
have been initiated and conducted by several governments, the leadership member
states of the EU, proud and strong of their long tradition, have regained their
historical destiny to exert their influence by means of their ability and their
power to offer a model to Europe and other parts of our world that lives on the
synergy between the respect of human rights and the protection of that
fundamental right which is named security.
It’s the duty of the
scientific community to support a political program that is constantly and
genuinely committed to build a balanced relationship between the respect of
human rights and the respect of that fundamental right which is the citizen’s
right for security. How to support such a political program? By developing
innovative research programs and scientific methods that impact positively and
in a highly constructive manner a social cohesion that has become frail and
that is increasingly put at risk of deterioration if not explosion;.
What’s about our program?
Since our creation we are
engaged in in the project that is aimed at the
reinforcement of social cohesion, and we are working with success. Our success
is due to our capability of innovation within the framework of our research
priorities. The development of strategies aimed at the reinforcement of social
cohesion in social environments that are characteristic of ethnic, cultural and
religious diversity is central to our scientific concerns
The program « Social cohesion enforcement »
consists of two main roads,
-
applied ethics:
-
risk management as
means of crime prevention and of inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict
prevention and solution.
The main road «APPLIED ETHICS» is genuinely aimed to
-
test the efficiency and the impact of norms that
protect fundamental values in ethnical,
cultural and religious diversity
-
establish the hierarchy of norms that protect
fundamental values according to the scheme: general consensus, partial
consensus, little or complete lack in consensus;
-
determine the nature of relations between the
variations in agreement and in reject of the norms that protect fundamental
values within the frame of diverse ethical cultural and religious groups;
-
develop models that are aimed at the reinforcement of
social cohesion, these models are to be developed by means of an approach that allows us to
distinguish between those norms that, at the level of descriptive ethics, are
accepted and respected, and, at the level of normative ethics, ought to be
accepted and respected by all groups ( because of their fundamental nature) and
those which are susceptible to be accepted / respected, though the protection
of the Republics fundamental values do not necessary require for them.
Rooted in the methods of
empirical social sciences, this empirical and inter-disciplinary research
design covers the stream “norms” and the stream “values”. It is aimed to
determine
a)
convergence / differences in regard to the acceptance
/ reject of norms that protect values and regarding the acceptance/ reject of
values that are legally protected;
b)
the impact of the diverse ethical, cultural and religious
environments upon variants of convergence and difference.
Given the circumstance that
the perception of norms and of supporting value systems, to a certain degree
(to be determined) varies as a function of cultural and axiological diversity,
the research which is conducted under the general frame “Applied Ethics”
involves incidentally “Normative Ethics”.
The main road « RISK MANAGEMENT » is principally
and genuinely aimed to
- determine, at the level of social communication in ethnic, cultural
and religious diversity, those elements and factors which favor
a) the development
of inter-community violence;
b) the development of deficient social communication.
Deficient social
communication engenders criminal behavior, deviance and anti-social behavior
both at the level of inter-community relations and within the diverse
communities
- manipulate these social communication structures as well as the
social, ethnic, religious and cultural environments in order to reduce the bad
social risk (development of delinquency) and to maximalize
the good social risk (prevention and communication).
The “good social risk” is
realized by means of the manipulation of those elements that, at the level of
social communication structures in ethic, religious and cultural diversity,
favor the predisposition of the communication participants towards delinquency,
violence, anti-social behavior and open conflict as a good risk.
This assumes that the good
social risk develops when delinquency, open conflict and anti-social behavior
and violence are considered by the communication participants as bad risk (has
become through manipulation of social communication structure and of its
environment a bad risk)
Our innovation and
our major cards?
Our major innovation consists
of the building of the Communicative
Risk Theory. It is a brand new paradigm. And it furnishes the theoretical and
empirical framework to our research.
It is a major innovation in
this the theory is capable of the development of strategies that are aimed at
the synergy between social prevention, crime prevention and inter-community
conflict prevention and solution;
We are the authentic creators
of that paradigm and we have developed it and we continue developing it with
success. Insofar we are the pioneers in this area.
Our dense research network
that consists of Directors of Research Institutes, outstanding university
professors and research officers – personalities celebrated nationally and
internationally, provides the best guarantee to our capability of innovation
and to the excellence of our scientific research
The scientific international
community, by granting us with one of the most distinguished awards, honors our
innovation and our outstanding research, while encouraging us to continue.
We have been granted with the
very prestigious “Distinguishes Paper Award” by the International Scientific
Committee of the 2nd International Conference “Democracy and Global
Security which hosted about 1000 participants, academics, government and
security actors (http://www.istanbulconference.info/Pages/2ndIstanbulConference.aspx)
Given the importance, the
outstanding scientific quality and the organization of this major scientific
event, considering its impact upon the development of security strategies in
democracy and in the world, there is hardly need to tell that we are proud to
be among the few who have been awarded.
This distinction supports our
expansive strategy that we have already developed with great success and it
encourages our future efforts.
Our goals
(i)
Develop an international scientific pole “APPLIED
ETHICS – SOCIAL COHESION AND RISK PREVENTION” – SCRAE -SOCIAL COMMUNICATION,
RISK AND APPLIED ETHICS CENTER(Homeland Security,
Global Security, Crime Prevention, Prevention of inter-community conflicts),
this pole consisting in a highly dense and concentrated administrative
structure and a research staff, not big but rather middle level, Staff members
are selected among the scientists that are actively involved in our network.
(ii)
(ii) Build world leadership in interdisciplinary and
applied research in our specialization;
(iii)
Concentrate our
efforts in regard to the development of scientific knowledge and “know how”
transfer and exchange (transatlantic, Western, Central and Eastern Europe,
Russia) in a European capital; make a substantial contribution to the
development of social control, crime prevention that impact, at the national as
well as international and global level, security an safety politics as well as
risk management policies.
(iv)
Develop a scientific
pole in
Why establish in
Target groups
Our activities are
praxis-orientated in this they
- are targeted at
risk populations as well as at the principal security actors, the institutions
of social control and actors of interethnic, intercultural and inter-religious
conflict prevention and solution management;
- provide
scientific and ethical means and support to strategies that are aimed at the
reinforcement / reconstruction of social cohesion; provide scientific and ethic
milestones to the political decision makers and justice;
- contribute to the development of scientific
knowledge exchange and know how transfer, at the multilateral and international
level;
- act in favor of the peace in the world by means of dialogue.
Our Philosophy
Is outlined Our SCRAE flyer:
International
Scientific Expert Committee
Our diverse activities – research, programming
and scientific consulting meet the highest international standards. In this
respect the brand new International Scientific Expert Committee will provide
the best guarantee.
The Committee staff
consists of outstanding and internationally recognized academics (Directors of
research, Professors and research officers).
Many future staff
members have already formalized in a highly official manner their engagement to
join the board. Among whom: Three outstanding personalities from the US, three
others from Russia, two from Israel, two others from Bulgaria, two from
Romania, one from France,, two from the Czech Republic, one from Hungary, one
from India, one from South Africa and another one from Turkey.
Actual Staff of the Scientific
Expert Board
-
Paul Balahur, PhD; Professor.
-
Dona Balahur, Ph.D. Professor.
-
William P. Bloss, PhD. Professor of Criminal Justice. The
Citadel.
.
-
Vasily Davydov, PhD.Attorney;
Management Partner. Davydov’s Tax and Law Consulting.
Ministry of Justice; Official Member of the International Barrister’s College,
-
-
Yakov Gilinskiy, Doctor
in Law, PhD. Professor, St. Petersburg’s
Juridical Institute of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Russian Federation.
-
Thomas Albert Gilly, Doctor
in Law. Director ERCES. Project Manager SCRAE. Research
Director IISCB. Editor-in-Chief ERCES Online Quarterly.
-
Vladimir Iliev,
PhD. Research Director. IISCB,
-
K. Jaishankar, Ph.D. (Criminology),
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Cyber Criminology; Lecturer,
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Manonmaniam
Sundaranar University Tirunelveli
, Tamil Nadu , India .
-
Howard B; Kaplan, PhD.
Regents Profersdsor. Distinguished Professor of
Sociology. Professor of Sociology,
Natalia A. Lopashenko, Doctor in Law.
Marina Luptakova,
PhD. Senior Research Officer. Institute for Criminology and Social Prevention,
-
Dr Cherita Morrison. Department of Communication and Legal
Services.
Gueorgui Ivanov Petkov, PhD. Associate Professor in Nuclear Engineering,
-
Miroslav Scheinost,
PhD. Director,
-
-
Eli B. Siverman,
-
-
Peter Tarlow, Ph.D. Director Tourism and More Inc.
-
Sheryl Van Horme, PhD. Ruthers University
-
Ahmet Sait Yayla, Turkish Institute for
Police Studies,
SCRAE’S
Directory Board.
-Directors
Dr
Thomas Albert Gilly
Director ERCES
Director of Research IISCB
Editor-in –Chief Erces Online Quarterly Review
Anelia ILieva,
Director IISCB
Co-Director
Eli. B. Silverman, Phd.
Professor Emeritus John Jy College of Criminal Justice, NY..