This book describes the results of a six-nation study of how criminal justice agencies in England and Wales, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden have reacted to high crime rates and punitiveness. The book details how various solutions have been adopted, involving diversion of cases from courts, increases in financial penalties imposed by police or prosecutors without full court hearings and the introduction in some countries of "administrative offences".

"The implementation of recommendation (85) 11 of the Council of Europe on the position of the victim in the framework of criminal law and procedure."--T.p.

The Dutch criminal justice system has, for some time, been famous for its mildness. This mildness, which has been reflected for example in a strikingly low prison rate has both impressed and shocked foreign criminal law scholars and criminal justice officials. This traditional mildness is now at stake. Crime has increased considerably and so has the prison rate. Major changes have taken place in Dutch society, and these require a new criminal justice policy. In 1985 the Minister of Justice submitted to the Parliament a new policy plan called Society and Crime, and a policy plan called Law in Motion was published in 1990. These new criminal policy plans propose a step-by-step approach in order to raise the level of criminal law enforcement and to intensify crime prevention. The statutory powers of the police to investigate organized crime will be expanded, the efficiency of the prosecution service will be improved, the capacity of prisons will be increased, and crime prevention programmes will be intensified. Whether the relative mildness of the Dutch criminal justice system will be maintained in the future or not, is a difficult question to answer. However, since the mildness is built into the system itself (as is demonstrated in this criminal justice profile) it is most probable that this mildness will be at least partly preserved in the future as well.

This volume discusses EU criminal justice from three perspectives. The first concerns fundamental rights following the adoption of the directives that have progressively reinforced the cornerstone of procedural rights of suspects and defendants in national criminal proceedings in the EU member states so as to facilitate judicial cooperation. The second perspective relates to transnational criminal investigations and proceedings, which are seen as a cross section of the current state of judicial cooperation in the area of freedom, security and justice, with the related issues of efficiency, coordination, settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction, and guarantees. The third perspective concerns the development of a supranational justice system in the light of the recently established European Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose European judicial nature still coexists with strong national components.

This book describes the results of a six-nation study of how criminal justice agencies in England and Wales, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden have reacted to high crime rates and punitiveness. The book details how various solutions have been adopted, involving diversion of cases from courts, increases in financial penalties imposed by police or prosecutors without full court hearings and the introduction in some countries of "administrative offences".