Przestępczość i polityka karna w krajach postkomunistycznych: spojrzenie laika

Can we seriously analyse penal policy trends in the post-communist states if we have no idea on the penal legislation in these countries, on trends in crime combat and prevention or the current shape of the penal policy, including in particular penal code reforms that are being developed or implemented? We would naturally say no. The author, however, attempts to prove that such an analysis is possible provided one has access to relevant statistical data. The data are contained mainly in three publications: European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, Penological Information Bulletin and Atlas przestępczości w Polsce [Overview of Crime in Poland]. For the purposes of this paper, the data were significantly modified not to include some of the post-communist states. For various reasons, mainly due to the data credibility and completeness, the author focussed only on ten such states, i.e. Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. Some comparisons also include Bulgaria.Firstly, an analysis of the data shows that the common characteristics of the post-communist states under discussion are their high crime levels, both in terms of dynamics and prevalence. An exceptionally high level of crime risk is also displayed in the victimological research results. Secondly, a comparison of crime reporting levels clearly shows that the crime level in our region is actually much higher than police statistics might suggest. This is also confirmed by the results of nationwide Polish research held every four years within the International Crime Survey. We usually are one of the last countries in terms of crime reporting levels. It seems that people in our region are generally quite reluctant to report crime (due to our mistrust in police effectiveness), which makes our official crime statistics extremely unreliable. Therefore, while victimological research in the Western European countries may be treated as an interesting alternative to police statistics (and we actually could do without the latter), in our region, such research is a must. Thirdly, due to the extremely unreliable police statistics, it is essential to initiate victimological research in the countries of our region, and ideally to include them in the International Crime Survey. Without reliable victimological studies, we will have to rely on the police data that sometimes seem to be a tactless joke. The author's analysis, although not aim