1. Melinda Gyökös Community crime prevention and social reintegration of offenders in Hungary
17-18 September 2007
Chisinau

2. Community Crime Prevention
Criminal politics and community crime prevention
National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Organisation
The prevention of re-offending
Reintegration and restorative justice

3. Community crime prevention
Crime is a product of society and its reproduction is always a characteristic of the society itself.
A coherent crime prevention as a particular type of social policy increases the self-defence capabilities of society.
Community crime prevention entails both professional and civil activities but is governed by state authorities.

4. Designing the Crime Prevention Strategy
2002 UN Guidelines
integrated crime prevention
cooperative partnerships
funding, accountability
knowledge base
Constitutional principles
human rights
proportional intervention
social justice

5. Designing the Crime Prevention Strategy
Key principle of simultaneus competency
The three „pillars” of
reducing the effects of the social causes of crime
reducing victimization
reducing the opportunity for crime
are to be applied simultaneously.

6. Community Crime Prevention
Criminal politics and community crime prevention
National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Organisation
The prevention of re-offending
Reintegration and restorative justice

7. National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Parliamentary Decision No. 115/2003 on the National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
governmental decrees on the action programmes (for 2003/2004, 2005/2006, 2007/2008)

8. National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
community crime prevention is directed at reducing crimes that directly harm or put at risk citizens and their communities, it is mostly effective against “ordinary” criminal phenomena that directly influence the public’s sense of security
joined-up governing model and practice
integrated part of local public affairs

9. Establish public safety that improves quality of life and reduces crime
Improve public safety
Integrate crime prevention with state social policy
Establish cooperative partnerships among crime prevention actors
Strengthen sense of security of citizens
Non-violent conflict resolution
Cut down damage done by crime
Reduce effects of causes of crime
Reduce victimisation and repeated victimisation
Prevent formation of criminal career
Coordinate among sectors, departments and disciplines
Enhance small-community integration and control
Provide assistance for victims
Strengthen observance of the law
Limit opportunity
for crime

10. National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Priorities identified by the Strategy
1. reduction of juvenile delinquency
2. improvement of urban security
3. prevention of violence within the family
4. prevention of victimization, supporting and compensating victims
5. prevention of re-offending (recidivism)

11. Community Crime Prevention
Criminal politics and community crime prevention
National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Organisation
The prevention of re-offending
Reintegration and restorative justice

12. Organisation National Crime Prevention Board (NCPB)
inter-governmental body responsible for handling the coordination of community crime prevention
standing and invited members
chaired by an expert appointed by the Minister of Justice and Law Enforcement

13. Organisation Crime Prevention Unit (CP Unit)
integrated into the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement, directly under the Chief of Cabinet
professionally supervised by the chair of NCPB
cooperation: Unit for Cooperation of Crime Prevention Activities of the Law Enforcement Agencies
Strategic Planning Unit
Department of Criminal Law and Law Enforcement Codification
National State Treasury

14. Organisation Tasks of the CP Unit
1. preparing the codification referring to community crime prevention
2. preparing the action programmes for the implementation of the national strategy for community crime prevention and preparing the reports on fulfilling the tasks prescribed by the action programmes
3. coordinating the implementation of the Strategy, providing secretarial service for the NCPB

15. Organisation Tasks of the CP Unit 4. furthermore it
● cooperates in the reform process of the system of criminal statistics
● initiates researches in order to reveal latent crime and co-operates in making professional use of them
● promotes to spread the national and foreign best practices of community crime prevention

16. Organisation Tasks of the CP Unit
5. fulfilling the tasks connecting to the call for proposals in the field of community crime prevention
6. contributing to making use of the professional knowledge of the National Crime Prevention Board in the policing education and training

17. Organisation Tasks of the CP Unit 7. taking part in the work of
● the commissions on drug-affairs, and national health
● the UNODC, ICPC and EFUS
● the EUCPN as its national contact point

18. Organisation Relevant partners of the CP Unit
All the actors which could be involved or are able to cooperate in the activities of community crime prevention.
public: ministries, police, services and institutes
private: municipalities, businesses, NGO-s, churches

20. Organisation Available annual budget of the CP Unit
since 2005 community crime prevention is one of the five facultative public interests for which 1% of the personal income tax could be offered
in million HUF ( €) were available
in million HUF ( €)
the amount is mostly used for funding projects through call for proposals (152 million HUF in 2008, 118 million HUF in 2007)

21. Community Crime Prevention
Criminal politics and community crime prevention
National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Organisation
The prevention of re-offending
Reintegration and restorative justice

22. Prevention of re-offending
the prison population in Hungary has increased steadily (with 24 %) between 1998 and 2002, since 2002 it has been slowly (8 %) decreasing
increase in the average term of custody, change into a custodial sentence for non-payment of fines
in 2006 around persons were being held in accommodation
prison population rate: 163 (6. place in EU in 2006)
saturation rate: 145 % (3. place in EU in 2006)

23. Prevention of re-offending
daily cost of custody in 2004 was 6000 HUF (23,62 €) per prisoner – expensive, while community (non-custodial) sanctions supervised by the Probation Service is more economic (costs only % of the expenses of imprisonment)
54,2 % of the prison population spends short time imprisonment (for 3 years or less) – in these cases the implementation of community sanction is reasonable

24. Prevention of re-offending
Further reasons and conditions for implementing non-custodial sentences
„Tokyo Rules” (Gen. Assembly Rec. 45/110, 1990)
reform of the Probation Service 2003

25. Prevention of re-offending
Tasks of the criminal justice system
police and other investigating bodies
courts and public prosecution services
penal institutions
probation service

26. Prevention of re-offending
Tasks to be implemented via sectoral cooperation
health policy
social policy and family policy
youth and sport policy
education policy
children protection
employment policy

27. Prevention of re-offending
Tasks of community crime prevention arenas
local governments
NGOs and churches
neighbourhood and residential community
private individuals
media and publicity

28. Prevention of re-offending
Expected results
rise of the standard of probation work
rise of the frequency of application and efficacy of alternative sanctions
reduction of penal service costs and the harmful consequences of loss of liberty, resulting in a decreased risk of recidivism

29. Community Crime Prevention
Criminal politics and community crime prevention
National Strategy for Community Crime Prevention
Organisation
The prevention of re-offending
Reintegration and restorative justice

30. Reintegration and restorative justice
Need for reintegration
57 % of the prisoners are re-offenders (24 per cent recidivists and 33 per cent multiple recidivists)
crowding of penal institutions raises tensions within prisoners and harmful interactions

31. Reintegration and restorative justice
Need for reintegration
social parameters, level of education and professional qualifications of prisoners are poor (proportion of people with less than 8 years of school education: 13.8 per cent among adult prisoners; 50.6 per cent among juveniles)
Roma people with disadvantaged social backgrounds are over-represented in the prison population (to an extent considerably above their proportion of the general population)

32. Reintegration and restorative justice
Objectives to be reached
prevention of re-offending by the combination of constructive measures in the execution of criminal sanctions
joint application of training, education and treatment of alcohol and drug problems

33. Reintegration and restorative justice
Need for restorative programmes
prejudices inhibiting offenders to reintegrate in the community and exclusion of offenders could be reduced by effective compensation of victims
confidence in the criminal justice service will be raised and public security boosted by successful implementation of current criminal policy reforms directed at compensating victims and appeasing the community

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