Changes in the Structure of Crime During the Transition Period in Poland

Abstract

<P> One feature of the transformation that took place in Poland in the last decade of twentieth century was a notable increase and change in the structure of crime. There were four main changes: an increase in the total number of crimes, a dramatic increase in crimes committed by juveniles (in 1989 and 1995) and females (46 percent more female suspects in 1999 than in 1989), the appearance of new kinds of crime (i.e., organized crime, terrorist crime, money-laundering, usage of explosives, large-scale arms smuggling, crime related to computers, electronic techniques, and electronic media, and new kinds of corruption). Besides an increase in total rates for crime, there was a rapid increase in violent crimes: homicide, robbery, bodily injury, and assault. Violent crimes reached a peak in 1997, increasing to 3.5 percent of all crime, while half as much was noted in 1989. The total number of drug-related crimes increased (in 1999 there were more than six times as many as in 1989) and was deepened by new organized forms of crime. A dramatic increase in juvenile delinquency was noted in all kinds of violent crimes: homicide, bodily injury, assault, and especially robbery. In the mid-1990s, females were most frequently suspected of violent crimes--for homicide, traffic offenses, and robbery. </P><P>New kinds of crime demanded new legal regulations. Changes in the structure of crime in the transition period in Poland are interpreted in terms of the usage of opportunities created by changes in the economic and legal systems, as well as in terms of sociopsychological response to increased competition in Poland of the 1990s. Lack of real freedom of choice and the need to struggle for this freedom, as well as increasing life stresses, are psychological factors and the lack of effective social and institutional control systems are sociological factors used to explain increased crime in general and increased juvenile and female violent crime in particular. The increase in crime is an inevitable cost of transformation. Political change in Poland occurred without revolution, as the result of peaceful negotiations in 1989. However, the transition period with its dramatic increase in crime, particularly violent crime, seems to represent a vicarious or postponed revolution in society.</P>