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The changing nature of juvenile crime in post-socialist countries at the beginning of the 21st century: the perspectives of Croatia and Serbia

This presentation builds on three essential starting point. The first is popular belief of the dramatic increase in juvenile crime rates across Central Eastern Europe since 1990s. The second one is related to previous research which have shown that one of the many social consequences of the transition to democratic market societies is change in both the scope and the nature of the crime, particularly juvenile crime. Finally, the third starting point of this paper is inconsistent, or even conflicting assessment of trends in juvenile crime in post-socialist countries over the last two decades, which has spurred an important debate in comparative criminology regarding the operationalization of transition and the theoretical relevance of this concept in explaining juvenile crime variation. These starting points have been the subject of controversy, thereby requiring the criminologists to consider both quantity and quality of juvenile crime more carefully in their analyses. Much of the juvenile crime research is at the national or regional level, focusing on juvenile crime in total, or on juvenile homicide as easy comparable and the most dangerous offence. There are comparative criminologists who suggest future research in this filed to be focused on trends in different offences committed by juveniles in two or three post-socialist countries to avoid the lack of comparative aspect in national studies as well as to avoid the lack of appreciation of the data on the specifics of individual countries in regional level research. The shared history and particularly the similar experience of transition under conditions of the war make Croatia and Serbia interesting to compare trends in juvenile crime and to study the effects of social and economic transformations of society, including war and post-war circumstances, on juvenile crime, which is the main goal of the presentation. Using official crime statistics, authors observe nature and scope of the reported juvenile crime in Serbia and Croatia in the period between 2000 and 2013. Although there were no consistent or substantial changes in total juvenile crime during the observed time, there were some significant changes in juvenile violent crime: juvenile crime against life and limb quadrupled in Croatia and doubled in Serbia, and juvenile crime against public order increased three times in Croatia and eight times in Serbia. There were also significant changes in juvenile property crime in both countries: with decrease in theft and an increase in robbery it also becomes more violent.

juvenile crime; transition; crime trends; controversy; comparative criminology

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