Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Present world has no clear balance between economic and political forces. Conflict initiators use all possible sanctions and unconventional means and ways and have no clear and permanent structure and allies. Traditional leadership and actions in conflict zones are not effective. Complex dynamic systems (CDS) paradigm allows understanding better the essence of chaotic processes in conflict zones and acting efficiently.

The relevance of this article is based on the aim to fulfill the lack of understanding of public perception on energy security. Despite the fact that energy security problems in Lithuania are analyzed on a regular basis, however, there is no comprehensive research on the very issue of the public perception of energy security. The results of the empirical survey (public poll carried out in 2013) are used to explain the public perception of energy security and its main aspects, and to show the existing difference of society opinion between different social groups in regard to gender, age, education, occupation, income and living area. The research showed that variety of different aspects are taken into account in public perception on energy security. The dominance of “The prices of energy resources” (mean – 4.35) and “Reliability of energy supply services” (mean – 4.25) was fixated throughout different social groups. The three most ambivalently ranked aspects were “Development of oil extraction” (mean – 3.50), “Development of nuclear energy” (mean – 3.30) and “Development of shale gas extraction” (mean – 3.08).

This paper examines the reforming process in the coal mining industry in Ukraine and analyses reform outcomes which a gradualist approach adopted to recover the industry has delivered. Ukraine’s gradualist approach is addressed in the paper narrowly through the lens of rent seeking, established in the coal industry in Ukraine in the 1980s, which persisted and stretched across the highest tiers of the government after the country gained independence. By now, reform achievements turned to be much less fruitful than in other countries - proponents of gradualism, first of all CEE and FSU countries. Detailed analysis of strategic documents which define development of the coal mining sector, reveal inconsistencies all of which lead us to the conclusion that the recent reform attempts are not purposed, in fact, towards implementation unlike declared. Strategic documents are not timely consistent when it comes to defining stages of the coal mining reform and a clear implementation timeline, not speaking about agreement on all major reforming steps to be undertaken.

The internationalization practice of private public cooperation has been intensively studied since the 1960s. Due to increase in public capital flows, direct investments and competition in private services at that time active development of public and private cooperation has begun. This publication emphasizes the importance of a military training system quality and ways how to gain the better performance for the sustainable improvement. However diminishing long term allocations for training suppose new perception for different kind of qualification anticipated in the National Defense System (NDS). There are several good experience countries in the world which changed their army training system qualification assessments and purchased training service from private companies. Market research data showed that public-private partnership in military training is a new kind of military sustainable support possibility. There was a novel model laid in this paper for better military training system and private partnership evaluation.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union the control over the production and sales of narcotic substances in Latvia and Lithuanian decreased significantly. In 1992 the law that stipulated compulsory treatment for drug addiction was abolished. At about the same time relationships among drug addicts underwent a drastic change. In the 70’s and the 80’s drug addicts acquired and produced narcotics themselves but in the 90’s with the start of economic growth, organised crime started to flood the market of our countries with cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines which took over the traditional homemade narcotic substances.

The presence of organized crime strongly affects sustainable waste management in Italy. In particular, illegal trafficking of waste has become one of the fastest growing areas of crime and one of the most lucrative industries among organized criminal activities, which has now infiltrated both the Italian urban and hazardous waste management cycle. In this study, we aim to investigate the determinants of the illegal trafficking of waste using waste, economic, and enforcement data in a panel analysis over the period 2002-2013. The topic is particularly relevant, given the high heterogeneity across Italian regions which also relates, and eventually leads, to different environmental performances. Our main findings reveal that, in most Italian regions, enforcement activities do not exert a significant deterrence on criminal behaviors; a negative relationship between enforcement and illegal trafficking of waste can be identified only for very high levels of enforcement efforts. Moreover, we find that the major determinants influencing the rate of illegal trafficking of waste differ between northern-central and southern regions, confirming the existence of a regional dualism. In particular, while in the northern-central area the crime rate is positively related to the level of education and negatively to the adoption of environmentally sound policies, in southern regions the organized activities for illegal trafficking are negatively related to the degree of education attainment and positively to the endowment of waste management plants.

The paper aims at distinguishing the assumptions and component parts of financial system sustainability formation. Partly, sustainability of financial system can be expressed through the functions of financial system. Three financial subsystems are distinguished in the research: public finance, business finance and personal finance. The sustainable and efficient operation of each subsystem contributes to the sustainability of financial system as a whole. Also, sustainability of each of the subsystem can be measured by different indicators. In order to determine the strength of impact of various financial functions to the financial system such indicators as capital investments into financial and insurance activities, financial and insurance activities’ value added, as well as value of production and purchase of goods and services by the financial companies is analysed. Finally, the scheme of financial system sustainability is presented. The key conclusion of the research states that the synergistic effect of sustainable development of three fields of finance influences the sustainable development of the whole financial system and even can spread its impact beyond the limits of financial system.

Crime is an essential social problem that seriously influences the security of the society and every individual. Social security, in turn, rather closely correlates with state security. Recidivism takes an important place in the general structure of crime and is closely related with the organized crime and state security. Trying to solve the problems of crime by isolating the criminals, at the same time overlooking the gaps in legal and moral cognition, the consequences of crime are temporary prevented but the causes of this problem is often not unmade thus reinforcing the risk of recidivism. The increase of the crime rate among females becomes more topical that taking into account the role of women in the process of reproduction directly influences mental health and security of the society. That, in turn, strengthens the necessity to study the causes of female crime, as well as those determinants that deter the representatives of certain gender from the criminal action. In this regard the study of psychological preconditions in the context of gender differences can arouse interest, highlighting such component of moral and legal cognition as justice.