Kształtowanie się przestępczości nieletnich w Polsce w latach 1951-1960 w świetle statystyki sądowej

Bibliographic Data

ID6136901
AuthorsJerzy Jasiński (corresponding author), Jerzy Jasiński Jerzy Jasiński
Year1964
Issue2
Pages9-144
Publication date1964-01-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArchiwum Kryminologii (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2719-4280 • E-ISSN: 0066-6890
PublisherPolish Scientific Publishers PWN (PUBLISHER • PL)
DOI10.7420/ak1964a
OpenAlexW3162584307
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited10

In accordance with the criminal legislation in force in Poland, the term of juvenile delinquents comprises those persons who have committed a criminal offence before completing their seventeenth year of age. Such juveniles are prosecuted, as a rule, before special juvenile courts; they may be sentenced only to the application of various kinds of educational means, or be placed in a correctional institution. The subject of the present contribution is an analysis of the statistical materials connected with the juvenile persons found guilty within the ten years 1951— 1960. Such materials, making up the judicial statistics of juvenile delinquency, are formed by adding up the records from record cards filled by the law-courts - in every single case where educational and correctional means have been decreed with regard to a juvenile person. Consequently, the above statistics are in Poland, as, incidentally, in a great many other countries, those of findings of guilt, and not of the persons found guilty; every juvenile person is counted there as many times as the application of such means was decreed with regard to him. The data contained in such and similar statistics are known not to provide information about the actual dimensions of juvenile delinquency. A sporadic perpetration of certain minor offences, particularly theft, is extremely widespread among the totality of children and young people, and the perpetrators of such offences brought to light and prosecuted before the law-courts constitute but an insignificant percentage of the total number of juveniles who have committed this or that offence. Independently of the above-mentioned record cards, which furnish us with a great many data concerning the juveniles found guilty, there exist other sources of information concerning a certain even wider category of juveniles, namely those, against whom there was a suspicion, at some stage or other of the prosecution, that they were the perpetrators of offences: special court reports and police statistics. The data taken from judicial reports inform us that the juvenile courts dealt, in the years 1951 to 1960, with 25,000 to 38,000 cases of juvenile delinquents every year. Approximately 56 to 61 per cent, of those juveniles with regard to whom the application of educational and delinquents every year. consisted of persons correctional means was decreed (i. e. the juveniles found guilty), from 20 to discontinued in the 31 per cent. — juveniles, prosecution against whom was of preparatory proceedings, 6 to 11 per cent. — the juveniles acquitted, — those, whose cases were dealt with in some other ordinary law-court, course and 7 to 12 per cent. –(most frequently by making the case over to an because of the suspect person having completed 17 years of age). quite exceptionally appealed against by the Public Prosecutor, and very rarely by the accused themselves (in a mere cent, of the cases). In at least one-half of the total number of cases maintained in force by the courts way The decrees of juvenile courts are 3 to 5 per of appeal the decrees appealed against are of appeal. It was only in very few cases that the alteration of the decrees appealed against found their expression in the finding guilty of a juvenile acquitted, or else in acquitting one found guilty; mostly they consist in changing the educational means of the making accused over to a correctional institution. Between the number of juveniles, whose cases are annually dealt with by juvenile courts, and the number of juveniles suspected by the police of the perpetration of offences there were, particularly in the years 1951 — 1954, considerable differences, which showed that a large number of juveniles with whom the juvenile courts had to deal, were directed there not by the police. ? Within recent years such differences have become much smaller, so that at considered that the large majority of cases dealt with by the juvenile courts find their way there through the intermediary of the police Year Rate Index number of juveniles found guilty 1951 15641 4.5 100.0 1952 18022 5.3 117.8 1953 21444 6.5 144,4 1954 18495 6.0 133,3 1955 16307 5.5 122,2 1956 13474 4.6 102,2 1957 15019 4.9 108,9 1958 16821 5.1 113,3 1959 19730 5.6 124,4 1960 20520 5.4 120,0 In spite of the appearance, within the ten-year period in question, of certain variations in the frequency of juveniles being found guilty, a detailed analysis of the data provided by both judicial and police statistics has demonstrated that there were no foundations for an assumption that such variations were connected with any actual increase or decrease in juvenile delinquency. The yearly frequency of juveniles being found guilty (i. e. of persons between the ages of ten and sixteen) was expressed, throughout the 1951 — 1960 period, by an average rate equal to 5.3. In accordance with the latest data available to us from the pre-war period, namely from 1937, the number of juveniles found guilty that year amounted to 29384, while the frequency of their findings of guilt was only slightly higher than the average rate for the years 1951 — 1960; the corresponding rate amounted to 5.5. If the frequency of juveniles being found guilty were to remain, within the nearest future, on the same level as in the years 1959 — 1960 (when the rate amounted to about 5.5), then — in connection with the ever more numerous age-groups, composed of children born after the war, and now reaching the “ juvenile” age groups — the probable number of juveniles found guilty would amount to about 26320 in 1965, consequently by some 28 per cent, more than in 1960. In order to evaluate properly the amount of the findings of guilt of larger groups of juveniles over longer periods of time, the rates which inform us about the above frequency within one year only, are of no use. Therefore in order to achieve this aim we must look for other measurements of the frequency of findings of guilt. It appears particularly tempting to take for such a measurement the percentage of persons who had been found guilty of offences committed while they were still juveniles, as compared with the total number of those born within the year in question. If the above percentage be calculated with regard to the number of persons born within one calendar year at the moment when they completed seventeen years of age, that measurement will inform us, what part of the group of persons who have just become adults consists of those who had been found guilty as juvenile delinquents. The appropriate calculations have been made for persons born in the years 1941 to 1944, i. e. for persons who are from nineteen to twenty-two years old in 1963. At the moment when they were just seventeen, from 3.5 to 3.8 per cent, of their number consisted of persons found guilty for offences committed while they were juveniles. As for boys alone, the above-mentioned percentages were of the size of from 6.3 to 6.8 per cent., which means that, approximately, every fifteenth young man born in the years 1941 to 1944 was previously found guilty of offences committed during the period when he was still a juvenile. One of the problems which a considerable deal of attention has been devoted to in the present contribution are the local differences between the degree of frequency of juveniles being found guilty. Two aspects of the problem were disscussed: that of the differences in the size of the rates calculated for the several voyevodships, and for town and country respectively. Even though Poland is divided into twenty-two large administrative units, called voyevodships, yet in the present contribution their number was assumed to be only seventeen; this was done by joining the five largest cities, having the status of a separate voyevodship, with the surrounding voyevodships (thus e. g. Warsaw and the voyevodship of Warsaw, Poznan and the voyevodship of Poznań, etc., have been treated as one single voyevodship). In the size of the rates, therefore, calculated on the basis of the number of the juveniles found guilty in the several voyevodships, there appeared considerable differences, which, however, proved to be smaller towards the end of the ten-year period under investigation, than they had been at its beginning. When, within each year, the voyevodships were placed in a sequence corresponding to that of the size of the coefficient of juvenile delinquency, it appeared that a relatively higher degree of frequency of juveniles being found guilty were always characteristic of some voyevodships, while others showed a relatively lower degree of frequency (W = 0.87)[1]. It also appeared that there existed a correlation between the degree of frequency of juveniles being found guilty in various voyevodships and the degree of frequency of the convictions of young persons between the ages of seventeen and twenty (in 1955: % = 0.53; in 1957: t = 0.51)[2]; on the other hand, correlation with the intensity of adult convictions looked rather doubtful. Generally speaking, a relatively higher degree of frequency of juveniles being found guilty was characteristic of the western and north-western voyevodships, while in the remaining areas of the country it was distinctly lower. Of course, the question arises of how to explain the above differences in the size of the rates. An attempt was made to provide an answer, by establishing whether the voyevodships with a high degree of frequency of findings of guilt were also those where such phenomena, thought to affect the increase or decrease of juvenile delinquency, appeared. For this purpose a number of demograph

Criminology · Juvenile · Juvenile delinquency · Legislation · Political science · Central European Literary Studies · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Polish Legal and Social Issues · Psychology

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