En œuvrant, depuis plus de trente ans, dans le domaine de la criminologie clinique, un but unique demeura au centre de mes préoccupations. Avant tout, il m'apparaissait important d'identifier les influences défavorables qui engagent dans une impasse sans issue la structuration originelle d'un dynamisme psychique encore labile, le rendant ainsi inapte à servir d'assise pour l'édification d'une personnalité aspirant à faire un usage rationnel et responsable de sa liberté naissante et le condamnant à revêtir une configuration qui le rend imperméable aux sollicitations éducatives ordinaires. En même temps, j'avais à coeur de soutenir les efforts d'un groupe d'éducateurs et d'éducatrices soucieux de parfaire leur formation et dont la curiosité toujours en éveil et le dévouement quasi héroïque, en plus de succiter mon admiration, m'obligeaient à ne jamais perdre de vue nos objectifs communs. C'est grâce à leurs observations ainsi qu'aux confidences de centaines de jeunes, que je me sens aujourd'hui en mesure de définir d'une façon plus précise et plus complète que jadis ce que sont les besoins du criminel en regard de son isolement social, des lacunes fonctionnelles de son appareil psychique et de son impuissance à établir avec autrui une relation authentiquement humaine.

Rationalization often conveys the thought of the introduction of modern technology. The judicial system has escaped technological development no more than other public institutions. From the Mesopotamian judgments in cuneiform characters to today's transcripts of Swedish judgements in computerized word processors there is a fairly straight line of development. It is a widely held opinion that in the next few years office work will undergo a virtually revolutionary change through the growth of computerization. Obviously this will affect the work also in, for example, court secretariats.

An examination of the treatment of offenders in the United States of the 1980s calls into play an array of forces and attitudes. To understand even a semblance of the issues requires a look at public attitudes toward crime, criminals and prisons; the relationship between criminal activity and economic conditions; society's concern for the underdog; prison philosophy and the outcome of rehabilitative efforts with prisoners; and the interaction of the legal system with all these factors.

Every year in Belgium about 1.000.000 offences are registered with the office of the Public Prosecutor. This is one offence per 10 inhabitants. Offences with a maximum prison sentence of 7 days or a maximum fine of $ 20 are not included in this figure.

This paper is mainly based on some empirical studies (1) which I have made of the ways in which agents of conflict resolution —formal as well as informal— behave under different social conditions. Of course empirical research does not exist in a value free vacuum. Pushing it to extremes, I do, spontaneously, prefer the attitudes behind the poem: “Rules, rules, if only they would disappear, the sun would again shine in our land” (2) to the following sayings: “One jurist is more powerful against Satan than a thousand unlearned men with their prayers” (3) and “The law is the foundation of a nation” (4). The ideas behind these words must be seen in their social context. The poem has been created in a society of the Gemeinschaft type while the sayings come from societies with the characteristics of Gesellschaft (5). I think that lawyers all over the world would agree with the ideas underlying the sayings, but I do not (6).

Many established institutions in the Islamic world have, because of Islamic fundamentalism, recently come under fire. Among these are the legal institutions. In this paper, an attempt was made to outline the trends and prospects associated with legal reform within the context of Islamic fundamentalism.

The Reagan administration has argued that people are not concerned about white collar crime but demand action against violent offenders. A similar logic seems to be persuasive in many countries.

Furthermore, this logic argues that the criminal justice system can do something directly about violent crime, that white collar crime does little damage, and a number of other questionable assumptions. After briefly reviewing some fallacies in these assumptions, the paper will turn to the consequences of adopting alternate strategies.

The main theme is that the Reagan administration logic assumes that crime is described by a bimodal curve which allows us to distinguish between minor, unimportant offenders and a distinct group of serious offenders. In fact, the distribution of deviance may better be described as a continuous curve. A further assumption is made that the shape of this curve remains constant and therefore an effective policy to reduce deviance would have to shift the entire curve. This logic would favor greater attention to longer range attempts to reduce family violence as a more effective means of reducing other violence in the future. In addition, the same logic would argue that deviance and crime by the powerful in society does influence deviance and crime by the less powerful. Other implications of these themes will be discussed.

In the present cross-cultural study, trends in violence and aggression are analyzed within a theoretical framework, according to which the probability of these behaviours as a reaction to stress will increase, when social support systems fail or malfunction. The variables of the study were:

• 1) Measure of social stress: inflation

• 2) Measures of social support: the ratio between marriage and divorce rates as well as rates of births to unmarried mothers served as measures of the strength of the family. Another measure in this category were mental health treatment contacts.

• 3) Measures of aggression and violence: rates of homicide robbery, rape, general criminal activity, and suicide.

Data regarding the above measures from the mid or end of the sixties to the end of the seventies were presented for fourteen countries. On the whole, the findings support the above theoretical model: the increase in social stress (as measured by inflation rates) and the parallel weakening of the family as a social support system, was accompanied in almost all the countries by an increase in most measures of violence and aggression. The only exception is Japan, where most measures of violence and aggression showed a decrease rather than an increase. Some characteristics of Japanese society are discussed: The strong emphasis on external (group) pressure towards conformity on the individual, contributes to the decrease of outward-directed aggression (homicide, robbery, rape) on the one hand, and to a considerable increase of inward-directed aggression (suicide) on the other. Some implications of these findings for future research are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research on this topic.

This study focuses on the impact of industrialization and urbanization on third world crime rate trends. Modernization theory assumes that third world crime is a delayed replay of the Western experience and will decline with the consolidation of an industrial society. Dependency theory assumes that contemporary economic development reflects the interests of the powerful at the expense of indigenous economic development and predicts rising levels of crime as by-product of modernization. In particular it is hypothesized that economic expansion should be accompanied by increased criminal opportunities and a lower level of social frustration over material needs, or, in terms of crime, by higher rates of property crime and lower rates of violent crime. A variety of data is presented in the course of testing this hypothesis which indicate that crime trends are a product of GDP, the price of commodities and luxury goods, housing conditions, and police force expansion. The results clearly indicate that dependency theory has limited explanatory power in accounting for changes in crime trends in Hong Kong 1956-1981, and that modernization theory must take into account increased criminal opportunities, as well as improving living standards if it is to successfully deal with the problem of third world crime.

Discussions of modernization are typically silent about the problem of crime in developing societies. Yet at the same time it is commonly agreed that virtually any area of the world that has been touched by urbanization and modernization can expect to experience high levels of crime. The studies of crime that do exist are cross-sectional examinations of the crime problem in particular developing societies, or they use indicators of development to explain variation between societies. However, there is virtually a complete absence of any systematic effort to examine crime trends and to relate these trends to the social and economic forces which are said to characterize developing countries. The following analysis attempts to correct this omission. Several possible determinants of crime rates identified in historical studies of crime in Western societies and a number of standard indicators of economic development will be used to explain property and violent crime trends in one developing society, Hong Kong.

There are two devergent approaches to the problem of third world crime. One of these works within the framework of traditional development or modernization theory and views development as a linear evolutionary process. A number of observers (Gurr, 1977, Lodhi and Tilly, 1973, Ferdinand, 1967, and Zehr, 1976) have presented evidence that crime was at exceptionally high levels in many western societies in the early nineteenth century, or just when these societies were beginning to experience the full impact of industrialization and urban growth. Similar observations have been made for contemporary societies that attempt to establish a modern industrial economy (Lunden, 1962, 1968; Shelley, 1981). The implication is that crime in developing societies is essentially a “delayed replay” of the Western experience. Third world crime may be at relatively high levels but this can be viewed a temporary problem that should begin to recede once the transition to a modern industrial societt is completed (Clinard and Abbott, 1973; Clifford, 1973, 1974).

According to this view industrial development inevitably increases the potential for nonconformity and hence crime by expanding personal freedom and opportunities for achievement. Crime becomes essentially a social cost that must be paid by any society that wishes to follow the path of modernization. “In short the pain and distress associated with crime should be see, not so much as symptomatic of disease but rather as growing pains” (Morris and Hawkings, 1970: 50).

An alternative and recently emerging approach to the problem of third world crime works within the framework of dependency theory and focuses on the presumed retrogressive effects of capitalist expansion into the third world (Hoogvelt, 1978; Frank, 1980; Oxaal et al., 1975). In this approach third world crime is seen not as an inevitable by-product of economic growth and a raising standard of living, but as a distinct social form developed in capitalist societies and imposed on the third world as part of a social package that accompanies foreign capital investment (Fitzpatrick, 1981; Onselen, 1976; Summer, 1982). In contrast to western development, third world dependency upon external capital has tended to inhibit the growth of internal capital, encouraged capital intensive industries, and generally weakened or destroyed pre-existing traditional economic structures.

Thus, whereas in development theory crime merely serves as a measure of the effective development of a society (Cloward and Abbott, 1973: 11; Lopez-Rey, 1970: 189), crime may now become a symptom of disease, as well as an active force in creating and stablizing underdevelopment (Onselen, 1976; Boerhringer and Giles, 1977). This brings us to the question of research hypotheses. In one way or another modernization theory predicts an eventual decline, or at the very least a levelling off, of crime rates as the fruits of development begin to spread throughout the society. In contrast, dependency theory appears to deny the beneficial effects of a developing industrial economy and appears to suggest that such societies should have to contend with a continuing spiral of crime, or at the very least, hight levels of crime.

It is possible to be more precise than this. Gordon (1971) has argued that most crime is motivated by a desire for material gain and that it is a rational response to the inequalities and insecurities engendered by a modern industrial economy. It is possible to derive two hypotheses about development and crime from this. First, as an economy expands it would be reasonable to suppose that pressures encouraging material gain should expand as well, thereby increasing the number of acts against property. Second, economic decline, or a low standard of economic development, should excerbate existing inequalities and conflicts over the allocation of material resources and as a result be associated with higher levels of violent crime. To put it simply, property crime and decreased violent crime.

If one wishes to study the effects of development on crime, Hong Kong has much to recommend itself as a place of study. Hong Kong resembles other developing countries to the extent that in the postwar years it has had to contend with the effects of extensive social and economic change. Where Hong Kong parts company with other developing countries is in the extent of its development, and it is this departure that provides the researcher with some unique opportunities for studying the effects of development. While, of course, it is open to question as to whether or not economic development in Hong Kong parallels or represents a delayed replay of development in advanced Western industrial societies, there can be little doubt that by the 1970's Hong Kong had started to take on a sufficient number of characteristics of an advanced industrial society to endanger its status as a developing society (1). To put it another way, as an “economic success story” in the developing world Hong Kong offers us with an extreme example of rapid capitalist/industrial development, and, as one of the few remaining colonies of the world, Hong Kong provides an unqualified example of dependent development. This being the case, it would seem reasonable to suppose that if there are any clear or consistent effects associated with development, dependent or otherwise, it would seem logical to expect that they would be especially likely to make their presence felt in Hong Kong.

Historical and ethnographic studies of “traditional” court functioning in most of our pre-colonial societies xhow that traditional rulers, as well as their chiefs, emissaries and henchmen, were perpetrators of certain institutionaled forms of corruption particularly in the adjudication of land and related disputes. Addes to this, and built upon it, were new forms of corruption made possible by the colonial political administration and economy. About 1952, the practice of giving and/or demanding “cash gift” was authoritatively stated to be found:

In the period of the relatively free operation of the Solidarity movement in Poland, that is between August 1980 and December 1981, the censor's control over the Polish press was considerably relaxed. Many critical articles which appeared in the daily papers and weekly magazines dealt with matters which previously could not be publicly discussed. In those sixteen full-of-hope months the Polish media experienced a similar wave of renewal as most other institutions in that countty. The material they presented has, therefore, an exceptional value for any study of social and economic problems of contemporary communist states.