5th Annual conference of the European Society of Criminology - CRACOW 2005

Challenges of European Integration: Challenges for Criminology.

With the accession of ten new member states on May 1st 2004 and the preliminary adoption of the European Constitution in June of that year, the process of European integration took an important new step.  Whatever direction this process takes in the future, it will mean new challenges for European structures and for internal security and criminal justice affairs.

The threat of international terrorism will no doubt be crucial for future developments in this area and may overshadow earlier concern with organised crime. More "traditional" forms of crime, however, shall not be overlooked. In most new member states law and order issues have tended to dominate political discourse for some time. Political, economic and social changes have resulted in considerable increase in crime. At the same time there has been a tendency to react to crime in an increasingly punitive way.

What does all this mean for criminology in Europe? Is European criminology sufficiently well prepared in terms of infrastructure and resources to deal with these new challenges? Likewise, is it prepared in terms of research and teaching? Are criminological resources in new member states sufficiently well-developed to cope? Is there any prospect of an EU of 25 member states moving in a common direction in the area of crime control and penal policy and is European criminology unified enough to support such a trend?

 These, appropriately, will be the main themes of the first ESC annual conference to take place in one of the new EU member states.