Three Faces of the ‘Post-Socialist’ Juvenile Justice Systems
| Author | Eszter Párkányi |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419882097 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
882097YJJ0010.1177/1473225419882097Youth JusticePárkányi
research-article2019
Original Article
Youth Justice
2019, Vol. 19(3) 222 –237
Three Faces of the ‘Post-Socialist’
© The Author(s) 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225419882097
DOI: 10.1177/1473225419882097
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Eszter Párkányi
Abstract
In comparative juvenile justice, it is often suggested that Eastern European juvenile jurisdictions have a similar,
‘post-socialist’, character. This presumption indicates a certain level of uniformity in legislative features and
justice policies across these countries that is related to their development before and after the political
transition. The comparative approach taken in this article is focusing on the historical and contemporary
differences in the development of these systems and thereby provide a more sophisticated understanding of
this region. The evidence is presented in a comparative analysis of three Central European juvenile justice
systems: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.
Keywords
Central Europe, comparative justice, Eastern Europe, juvenile justice, post-socialist
Introduction
About 30 years after the political transition in Eastern Europe, there remains limited
research accessible for an international audience about the complexities and interrelated
phenomena that form the juvenile justice systems of this region. The gaps in knowledge
are often filled using a simplifying regionalist approach that presumes a certain level of
uniformity and applies analogy in understanding different justice systems. This article
aims at drawing attention to the differences in law and policy across the juvenile jurisdic-
tions in this region. Three juvenile justice systems in Central Europe are compared to
demonstrate the variety of approaches. The three countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary
and Slovenia – are located in the same region and their political histories are linked at
many points, which may have heightened the tendency for them to be associated with a
hypothetical regional character. This article uses historical and contemporary evidence to
explore the differences between the institutions and the policies of these systems.
International works tend to presume that juvenile justice systems of this region are
similar to one another in their construction and values. The way these manifest in the
organisation of the justice systems is, however, often unclear. The clustering strategy of
Corresponding author:
Eszter Párkányi, School of Law, University of Leeds, The Liberty Building, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: e.parkanyi@leeds.ac.uk
Párkányi
223
Junger-Tas (2006) in the International Handbook on Juvenile Justice suggests that the
‘Eastern European’ juvenile justice systems represent a third cluster, besides the ‘justice-
oriented’ Anglo-Saxon and the ‘welfare-oriented’ Western Continental European jurisdic-
tions. While the expression ‘Eastern European’ implies a continuing social and cultural
divide between the nominal East and West, as there was between the Second World War
and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reason for settling on these clusters is not
explained further. In a comparative paper, Dünkel (2014) breaks away the uniformity-
assumption by suggesting that Eastern European jurisdictions can be divided into two
main groups according to their historical approach to juvenile justice: those countries with
more punitive policies (among which Czechoslovakia) and those of rather lenient policies
(among which Hungary and Yugoslavia). However, as he argues later, the need for youth
justice reform to abolish the old socialist or Soviet legal structures in Eastern Europe
united these countries in the ambition to transform their systems towards Western
European standards. As Dünkel highlights, policy trends that followed the transition are
‘somewhat different’ across the region, yet he only mentions the most widespread trends,
such as the ultima ratio use of imprisonment. While both works suggest that Eastern
European systems carry common characteristics, they raise further questions as to the
nature of these; it is rarely explained, for example, to what extent the entire juvenile jus-
tice systems of Eastern European countries are similar in their legal regulation or inter-
vention strategies, and which characteristics distinguish a specific jurisdiction.
Eastern European scholars confirm that overarching similarities are difficult to grasp.
According to Šelih (2012: 5), the developments in this area show important differences
both during the socialist years and after the transition. In the socialist regimes, the official
ideology was displayed in the intervention into political and social systems, through, for
instance, the one-party system, the surveillance of citizens, and the harsh punishments for
political crimes. However, its impact on the broader legal and social structures was far
from uniform. The politically promoted goals and methods were often softened or
deflected by the national traditions that developed either before or during the socialist era
(Sztompka, 2000). As an example to preserving traditional values, Junger-Tas (2006: 528)
observes that the historically interconnected juvenile justice and child protection systems
were able to preserve their traditional humane approach throughout the socialist era and
after the political transition. While Junger-Tas gives credit for this to the European human
rights movements, the process appears to be more complex. After the political transition,
countries had a different set of issues to deal with. Generally, they had to create legal
foundations for the new economic and social order while preserving the positive aspects
of the former systems, such as job security and free social and medical care (Šelih, 2012:
5). Whether the elements were conserved or abolished depended on the national priorities
along with the transition from a socialist to a capitalist society. In addition to this, in some
cases, for instance, the former Yugoslavia, entirely new states were established, in which
process priorities lay elsewhere.
The comparative scope of this article will be restricted to three Central European juris-
dictions: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. For historical reasons explained in
the later sections, this study will refer to a country as ‘Central European’, if it has been
established on the territory of the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire and later become
224
Youth Justice 19(3)
part of the Socialist Bloc.1 The common political route will support the first argument in
demonstrating that the three juvenile jurisdictions developed relatively independently
despite the political parallelism. This independence resulted in important differences in
their institutional systems and policy ambitions. This article then seeks to unfold the dif-
ferences among the legislative solutions in the three contemporary systems and the way
their policies and practice move in clearly different directions. Contrary to the regionalist
perspective, this article allows a more sophisticated understanding of the specific chal-
lenges in the three Central European juvenile justice systems and the ways these are
addressed in law and practice.
Differences Among Juvenile Justice Systems and the Challenges
in Comparative Research
A comparative study brings about the need to grasp the source and the manifestation of
similarities or differences between justice systems. The challenge is to decide which dif-
ference or similarity matters in defining the underlying nature of a system and which is
negligible (Nelken, 2019). This requires an understanding of the relationship between the
legal system, policy and professional culture across the three jurisdictions, as well as the
limits and biases caused by comparative context. This section seeks to frame the analysis
by giving the legal and policy context for the understanding of differences among the
three jurisdictions.
The institutional network that we call juvenile justice is a result of the continuous re-
evaluation of the understanding of youthful misbehaviour, including its limits, such as
the age when someone becomes responsible for a crime. In the initial process that trans-
lated these ideas into regulations in Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a
choice had to be made between expanding the roles of child protection and creating a
separate forum for juvenile delinquents within the justice system. Central European
countries built their juvenile justice systems upon the German-Austrian normative tradi-
tions and legal theory, but they were also inspired by the American developments at the
time (Filipčič and Plesničar, 2017: 395; Lévay, 2016). They introduced justice-based
systems, which resembled the adult justice systems, their distinguishing feature being
their leniency and a well-articulated reformatory mission. Although these systems have
never been identical, they follow a similar normative logic and therefore provide a good
foundation for a comparison that intends to uncover ‘unexpected differences’ in their
approach (Nelken, 2019: 191).
While significant changes are rare in the legal structure, policy changes tend to have
a brisk impact on the operational realities of the juvenile justice systems. Transferring
policy ideas and methodologies across jurisdictions often create ‘new’...
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