When the planning committee of the 12th International Congress on Criminology assigned me the task to take the floor at the final plenary session and to speak to the audience about the global growth of criminology the members surely had in mind that I should or would concentrate on the possible ways of development of criminological theory, research, policy, and practice in the immediate future. I actually thought myself that this may be the most appropriate way to deal with the matter. Some further reflections, however, and some additional experiences I gained through the manyfold personal contacts during this Congress in Seoul, led me to another solution. I thought I should rather take the opportunity of having before me participants from so many different mental traditions and so diverse scholarly backgrounds to address a couple of historically oriented and structurally shaped remarks. These remarks aim at providing us with some understanding in what way criminological knowledge emerged out of the process of modernization in the 18th and 19th centuries, how it was and to a certain extent still is embedded in the notion of scientific progress and the hope of eventual lasting improvement of the « conditio humana », and why in the late 20st century those expectations tend to fade away.

Last night I had a dream. In my dream I was landing at an airport. I could not tell what country I was in, but the date on a newspaper was August 29, 2098. Somehow I had traveled ahead in time for 100 years, to the end of the 21st Century.

When I got off the plane I was greeted by several graduate students who drove me to a district police station in a big city. They escorted me into the station and up the stairs to an office marked « District Criminologist ». As I walked into the office I was met by a middle-aged woman who said, «Welcome. You are just in time for my staff meeting ». She led me to a conference room where the walls were lined with maps of the district and many charts and graphs. There were three other criminologists in the room. The woman convened the meeting and called on the first of her assistants to present his agenda for the week.

Ce 12e Congrès est déjà une date historique pour la Société Internationale de Criminologie, il le sera pour la Criminologie mondiale.

C’est en Asie que, pour la première fois, criminologues et praticiens de la justice pénale de toutes les nations ont choisi, à notre invitation, de se rencontrer pour confronter leurs recherches et offrir, des perspectives nouvelles pour un monde en changement.

Para hablar de este tema que hoy por hoy es de discusión pública, debemos partir de distintas perspectivas analíticas a fin de comprender mejor el fenómeno y determinar una efectiva intervención que nos permita prevenir y atender a las víctimas.

Nuestros puntos de partida serán resaltar el valor que tendrá la familia para el siglo XXI, sus antecedentes e influencia actual; los derechos de los niños; la dinámica familiar y sus implicaciones, abuso en la familia; nuevas leyes y las expectativas de las víctimas; las políticas públicas y la prevención.

Même si cela ne paraît pas nécessaire, j’aimerais rappeler le thème de notre Congrès : Crime et justice dans un monde en évolution : perspectives en Asie et dans la communauté internationale, et insister sur ce qui en constitue la seconde partie, et non pas le sous-titre : La double approche, régionale et internationale (« Global », en anglais).

Ce thème est tout à la fois un avertissement à ceux qui, au risque de négliger les particularités régionales, pourraient croire que le crime, comme l’économie, est, quantitativement et qualitativement, un phénomène en passe de mondialisation inexorable, du moins pour ses manifestations les plus typiques; mais ce thème est aussi l’affirmation d’une évolution de la criminologie, de plus en plus poussée à distinguer ce qui peut être appréhendé au plan mondial (cf. Ugo Leone, Criminologia internazionale, Rome, UNICRI, 1993, not. pp. 187 et s.), et ce qui doit être appréhendé au plan régional, voire national.

Why do we punish ? What is the objective of criminal policy ? We often assume that criminal policy is governed by rationality. A rational policy identifies the means by which a given objective is to be reached at the minimum of costs. The objective itself cannot be determined by scientific means. It is usually taken for granted that the goal of criminal policy is simply to reduce crime rates. The Finnish criminologist Törnudd (1996) has proposed a more specific formulation : the goal of criminal policy is to minimize the cost and suffering caused by crime and by crime control, and to allocate this cost and suffering in a just manner.