Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-b5cpw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-22T10:07:14.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of the United Nations Congresses on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Manuel López-Rey
Manuel López-Rey*
Affiliation:
Institute of Criminology, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Up to now the United Nations has organized four Congresses: at Geneva 1955, London I960, Stockholm 1965 and Kyoto 1970. The next will take place at Toronto in 1975. Admittedly they have all been regarded as great successes and in this respect all participants as well as the host Governments and the United Nations Secretariat are to be congratulated. On the other hand, the tarm success may be interpreted from different points of view among which the implementation of their recommendations by Governments as well as the soundness of the conclusions adopted are the most important. As we shall see, the Congresses are among the most significant activities of United Nations leadership in social defence. Consequently many questions may by raised about their role. For example, what is the meaning of leadership? In view of the limited efforts of governments to implement the conclusions and recommendations of the Congresses in the adoption of which they play the dominant role, should this role be maintained in future Congresses? Should the problem of crime still be handled as an ensemble of selected problems or inversely as a whole, of which these problems form a part? What is the validity of “social change” as a general explanation of the crime problem? In view of the new magnitude and characteristics of crime at national and international levels should the Congresses continue to be organized as in the past?

Information

Type
II. — Criminologie Comparee: 1. — Organisations internationales
Information
International Annals of Criminology , Volume 12 , Issue 1-2: Criminologie et Politique Criminelle , 1973 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 International Society for Criminology

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

(1) This article is the predecessor of longer essays on United Nations Social Defence and the Problem of Crime and Grandeur and Misery of Criminology.

(2) See Social Development Newsletter, United Nations, New York, December 1972, p. 7.

(3) See M. Ló pez-Rey, Crime and the Penal System in Australia and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Melbourne, 1971, bases on my lecture at the Kyoto Congress. It will shortly be reproduced by the International Review of Criminal Policy, United Nations.

(4) See Las consecuencias econó micas y sociales de armamentos y gastos militares Naciones Unidas, 1972, also in English.

(5) For a different opinion see the reasons advanced to justify the transformation, particularly Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, XVth Session Supplement 3, doc. E/CN. 5/461 and ECOSOC resolution 1584 L, 1971. According to the latter the Committee was established « in order to provide the variety of professional expertise needed on social defence questions…»

(6) For factual data on some countries see M. Ló pez-Rey, Crime, An Analytical Appraisal, 1970, chapter 1, section 2.

(7) William Clifford's contribution Crime Prevention and Youth Development in the Newsletter mentioned in note 2 raises some interesting questions about this kind of development, at present so much favoured in certain quarters. He his right when he says «The wayward youth are still no more than a small fraction of the youth population» if juvenile delinquency is understood as it should be in accordance with the recommendations of the 1960 London Congress. On the other hand, his assertion that the «crime problem is largely a youth and young adult problem» seems to identify a particular problem of crime with the crime problem as a whole.

(8) See particularly Human Rights in the Administration of Justice, E/AC. 57/5, 1972. A comparison of the U.N. instruments, studies, etc in part reproduced, with the way in which « justice » is « administered » in many countries clearly shows that official and semi-official crime is far more serious than the crime committed by « the man in the street».

(9) Canada had a professional on Correctional Planning which, although relevant, covers a limited area of social defence planning. Among individual participants development and planning were represented from India, the Republic of Korea and again the United States.