SOME DILEMMAS OF CONTEMPORARY CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The paper deals with the main issues of this volume. The authors present important topics of criminal justice (studies) - policing, prosecution, adjudication, corrections, selected criminological issues, criminal policy, safety and security, issues and research in criminal justice. The following dilemmas presented in this book are recognised by the authors of this paper: understanding of criminal law (consensus and conflict models; disparities in definitions of criminal justice and criminology (legal tradition and social science tradition); cultural and historical notions of criminal justice (studies) in Europe, the United States and other parts of the world; policing - what suits the needs of citizens and possibilities of the police organisation, characteristics of police subculture and what can be done to overcome obstacles in police public communication and co-operation, overcoming a harsh controlling mentality and developing partnerships; the effects of public opinion and victim-driven criminal policy; what are criminal justice sciences and whether criminalistics/criminal investigation can be considered a science; reliance on eyewitnesses' distorted perception; what changes in legislation impact the effectiveness of law enforcement; responsibility of professionals (accountability) and civil society; effects of community policing and people friendly crime prevention; effects of developing private security and new control technologies; bottom-up and top-down strategies; talking-doing discourse; ideas-implementation relations; understanding of contemporary Criminal Justice (CJ) and criminological concepts; expectations of CJ professionals regarding crime control; the role of citizens and scientists in policing; crime prevention and justice; and professional planning for crime prevention and effective policing. In addition, contextual dilemmas of criminal justice (studies) in Central and Eastern Europe are discussed.