collega - Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem

Zoltán Boschütz
He expressed that probation policy
makers, managers, researchers, practitioners
could make the vision real,
interpreting it for their own societies.
He underlined that the CEP would
support new developments in
Europe with its program activities,
via exchanging ideas and by providing
experts. He put emphasis on the
significance of the seminar focusing
on the emerging countries in Europe,
on their diverse stages of development
of probation organisations and
having possibilities to learn from
each other, strengthening professionalism,
and contributing to sustainable
growth of probation.
Professor Katalin Gönczöl (Ministerial
Commissioner for Criminal
Policy, Ministry of Justice, Hungary)
outlined the necessity of introducing
a new penal policy for Hungary and
– in order to put into effect the idea
of punishment in community – to
form a new Hungarian probation
service in 2003. In her presentation
she emphasised the need to create a
sensitive balance between public
order and the rule of law. She underlined
that the Hungarian criminal
policy – after considering the different
criminal policy trends prevailing
in the U.S. and other democratic
countries – intends to follow the
European model, which does not
believe that the “prisons work” slogan
leads to the creation of an
acceptable public order and the rule
of law in a modern democracy.
Everyone has an inherent right to life
and human dignity. The criminal
procedure, in response to the criminal
act committed by the offender,
may limit his/her human dignity
but only to an extent that still
respects the guarantees set forth in
the Constitution, in the Act on
Criminal Procedure and in the
Criminal Code. Prison is an ultima
ratio, which should be used only in
case of the most serious crimes and
against the offenders thereof. She
emphasised that the prison should
not be a social institution against the
“guilty poor” or “unpleasant segregated
strata of society”, and pointed
out some backwards of the largescale
imprisonment. Professor
Gönczöl acknowledged that great
effort is being made in the European
countries to restore public confidence
in criminal justice. In this
process restorative justice would be
the key principle. She drew the participants’
attention to that fact that
crime is not only a criminal act but,
at the same time, an emotionally
overcharged moral event, and if the
sentencing procedure were failed to
acknowledge this moral and emotional
conflict, then the punishment
would not be able to fulfil its original
social function. 3
Therefore criminal
policy should offer possibilities for
the offender to compensate the victim
and to be reconciled with the
offended community. Thus, in the
reform of the Hungarian probation
service the aim was to apply the
principles of restorative justice.
Accordingly, offenders have to be
confronted with the consequences of
their criminal behaviour, and made
it clear to them that they must take
the consequences for the crime they
have committed. She stressed, that
„the possibility of realising the sensitive
balance between the rule of law
and public order lies in strengthening
the elements of restorative justice”,
because the human rights oriented
criminal policy could serve the
rule of law and ensure the preservation
of democracy.
Professor Anton van Kalmthout
(Lecturer in Criminal Law, Tilburg
University, The Netherlands) made
comparisons of probation and the
European probation services. He
outlined the probation as methods
of punishment by different phases
of criminal procedure, touching
upon the different forms of it, as
well as the different tasks of probation
services. He outlined the history
of the European probation and its
changing faces from the 19 th
to the
21 st century, and sketched its changing
focus from criminal act to criminal
offender. He described the different
characteristics peculiar to probation
services in different timeframes,
and their diversities due to
linguistic, social, cultural and political
differences, while their position
and activities seemed to reflect
directly of developments in criminal
justice in the European countries. He
discussed the new features of modern
sanction system, which showed
more attention for (1) rehabilitation
and resocialization of offender; (2)
preventive measures; (3) individual
situation of offender; (4) crime control;
(5) risk assessment and (6) safe
society. He identified some important
trends in the European probation
development, such as the relationship
between volunteer and professional
work; a shift from providing
assistance to supervision, the
increasing importance of using different
kinds of alternative sentences,
or in the probation services’ activities,
which have increasingly shifted
from inside (penal institutions) to
the outside world (community). 4
Outlining the probation services’
core tasks, he concluded that probation
tasks and activities do not differ
in essence in Europe, and they traditionally
focus on offenders and not
victims of crime. The structure of the
probation services is featured by
being centrally organised controlled
and financed by central government,
typically by the Ministry of
Justice. The European probation
services have given priority to community
sanctions and declared the
prevention of re-offending in their
mission statements. However, some
differences can be identified concerning
the distinction between
adults and young offenders or high
risk offenders, as well as the services’
declared role in crime prevention,
in the position of probation
services or concerning the education
of probation offenders. Professor
Kalmthout described the Central-
European probation services as
focusing on supervision of offenders,
as having less aftercare work,
and not being involved in crime prevention
activity, although they
could achieve an impressive
progress in a short time. 5
3 Gönczöl, Katalin – presentation, pp. 4.
4 Kalmthout, Anton van – Power Point presentation, slide 11.
5 Kalmthout, Anton van – Power Point presentation, slide 19.
258 XI. évfolyam 2–3. szám