Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The aim of the research was to analyse letters written by prisoners so as to discover what the penitentiary space means to them. The practical goal was to show the usefulness of employing epistolography in assessing the quality of social and living conditions and to evaluate the quality of penitentiary practices in the context of prisoners’ needs, as well as to unmask the hidden re-education programme. The article is based on the results of the content analysis of 26 anonymised letters written by prisoners who for the first time serve a sentence in Polish closed regime prisons. The collected research material was subjected to a framework analysis supplemented by an emergent technique. The analysis of prison letters indicates a generally critical assessment of the quality of the practices carried out and their accuracy in relation to the prisoner’s rehabilitation needs. The letters reveal also the existence of a hidden re-education programme. The use of the epistolary corpus in the description of the penitentiary space may result in the improvement of the current penitentiary methods. A thorough analysis of prison letters indicate areas that require change or the application of specific solutions that may contribute to the rationalization of penitentiary practices.

This article presents the rights of Prison Service officers regarding the preventive use of direct coercive measures. The concepts of the use and application of direct coercive measures were defined in relation to the Prison Service. The purposes of preventive use are presented with examples. The catalogue and basic principles of the use of direct coercive measures, which can be applied as preventive measures in the Polish Prison Service, are described. The above issues were adapted to the statutory protective tasks of this formation.

Securing of a democratic order is a vertical process (“from above downwards”) responding to the needs and concerns of certain persons and community groups and looking for the public trust, consent and support. Thus it is based on transparency and dialogue. There are social scientific and moral debates over what practices are most conducive to a democratic police (e.g., centralization vs. decentralization, specialists vs. generalists, internal vs. external controls, closeness or distance from those policed, maximum or minimum discretion, single vs. lateral entry). But it is clear that a democratic police can take many forms.

The Part I of article presents the current issues and latest trends of one of the public security policy one of priority – ensuring public security in combating crime. In article covers the main quantitative and qualitative indicators of the present-day crime in Lithuania and in the world; the key problems of crime prevention optimization and legal regulation and institutional problems of criminal process control are elucidated. This research focuses in particular on the importance of creating models for control and prevention of new crime acts. Also, the problems of prevention and control of some conditionally distinguished criminal processes – shadow economy, corruption, fight against human trafficking and violence in family environment – are scrutinized. As a result in this research is emphasised the importance of decentralisation in combating crime; the main guidelines of optimization and modernisation in this field are presented. The authors applied general scientific methods of studying objective reality, peculiar to legal sciences: systematic document analysis, metaanalysis, structural-functional analysis, teleological, comparative, critical approach, generalisation and prediction.

The long-term existence of the civilization of Ancient Rome within the framework of one national formation should be acknowledged as a unique example of national sustainability. Such sustainability was also ensured by the successful economic growth, the elements of social policy implemented by state authority etc. However, the particular emphasis should be placed on the role of very effective Roman legal system – it is the legal institutes developed within the framework of this system should be acknowledged as one of the most essential factors ensuring the sustainable development of Ancient Rome and public security. Roman “infamy” (infamia – Latin) is an example of such very important legal institute. Infamy (infamia – Latin) was applied in the situations when a Roman not only broke the law thus facing the criminal or civil liability, but also came into the collision with the society’s ethical views on what is good and what is particularly undesirable thus taking a risk to lose the reputation and to have specific restrictions regarding rights. According to the information found in the primary sources of Roman law, the shield of infamy (infamia – Latin) protected a wide range of issues significant for the society (the state military defence, morality, family values, the interests of national economic circulation, an individual’s life, health, economic interests, the right for the just trial and just settlement of individual and property disputes) thus serving as a driving force for the sustainable development of the state and society of Ancient Rome and public security.