Reakce naší veřejnosti na delinkventní chování ve světle empirických výzkumů

Knowledge of the state of legal consciousness is of fundamental importance for decisions in the punitory policy field. In the Criminological Research Institute at the Prosecutor General Office of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic extensive and socially relevant research in the field directed also to the problems of engagement of our public in the fight against criminal activities was therefore carried out in recent years. Within the research particular attention was paid especially to the inquiry into the tendencies of citizens to active reactions toward delinquent conduct in situations when they are witnessing such conduct. The principal topic of the research was selected on the basis of an inquiry into the views of the professional public in 1970. Results of the inquiry provided a convincing proof that active participation of citizens in the struggle with criminality is by our professional public recognised to be an exceptionally significant element of the efforts to curb and gradually to eradicate criminality. Only in the conditions of socialist society are given the requisites for the mobilisation of citizens to active participation in the fight against criminality. The structure of the socialist social relations affects the unification of the basic economic and political interests of the whole working population. This unity is the fundamental condition facilitating and stimulating the engagement of the great majority of the people in the fight against criminality. Thus in our society are incontestably given objective prerequisites for the prevailing majority of citizens to share in the struggle with criminality. This, of course, does not mean just a statement of the existing opportunity. Conversion of such opportunity into reality (or the measure of conversion) is contingent upon a number of other factors, in particular, whether and to what degree the best possible conditions for socially requisite motivation of citizens to positive activity will have been created. For such efforts to be successful it is necessary to know the laws of conduct of citizens meeting with criminal activities; to detect social conditions affecting positively or negatively engagement of the citizens in the fight with criminality. It is in detecting the regularities, causes and conditions of such engagement that consists the purport of the above mentioned research carried out by the staff of the Criminological Research Institute. The research, the results of which are dealt with in the treatise, was effected by methods normally employed for the investigation of public opinion through the questioner network of the Public Opinion Institute spread all over the territory of Czechoslovakia proportionally to the population in the various regions and the size of the place of residence. Questioning was carried out by directed interview technique, the selection of the company of the persons interrogated was made on the basis of quota selection rules combined with deliberate selection. The high degree of representativeness allows to make relatively very reliable estimates for the whole territory of Czechoslovakia, the territories of the two National Republics as well as for various classes of our citizens. The information presented in the treatise concerns above all the evaluation of the results of the investigation of the tendencies of citizens to spontaneous reactions in cases when citizens are witnessing a criminal offence or come to know of it. Tendencies to such reactions were investigated in two directions – on the one hand in interaction with the offender (i.e. in the situation of the place and time of the offence) and on the other in interaction with the agencies active in criminal proceedings. Further the information concerns the investigation of some factors affecting the tendencies of citizens to active reactions to criminal activities. Operative definition of the engaged conduct of citizens in interaction with the offender and with the agencies active in criminal proceedings was most difficult in the research in question. The only fully adequate approach would be here observation of the actual conduct of a company of people in experimentally instigated situations. However to carry out such experiments on a wide enough scale is obviously impossible and therefore another way convenient for work with an extensive representative company of citizens had to be found. It followed that it had been impossible to start from observation of the conduct of the company members but from their statements. It was then possible to choose between two kinds of such statements, i.e. on the likely reaction of other people or on the probable reaction of the person interrogated. Preference was given to the second alternative – to the statement of the persons interrogated on how they themselves would be likely to react in the given situations. The undisputable risk of distortion was accepted as a fact which had to be taken into account in the interpretation of the data, especially, in the sense that in actual reactions of citizens to concrete criminal offences a lower share of engaged conduct can be expected than that as would follow from the statements of the respondents. For the selection of the type of the delicts that were to be the object of inquiry it was considered that it would not be fitting to investigate attitudes to very serious criminal offences since sufficient reliability of the statements of those interrogated on their likely reactions could not possibly be assumed. It was thought more appropriate to aim at delicts lying in the lower half of the scale of gravity of criminal offences. Out of these were finally selected delicts constituting today due to their frequency and for other reasons an actual problem deserving attention. Summarily it can be stated that, based on the analysis of the statements made by those interrogated, a much better chance for the desirable engaged reactions of citizens can be assumed with respect to delicts against the interests of actual persons (personal property – bodily integrity) than with respect to roughly equally weighty attacks against the interests of the society as a whole. Based on the research are further on characterized relations of tendencies to engaged reactions in the fight with criminal activities to social and demographic attributes. Factors of engaged reactions are then proceeded with. The hypotheses of the research under discussion concerned the examination of the influence of the following groups of factors of social (and social-psychological respectively) nature: 1. attitudes to agencies active in criminal proceedings; 2. ethical evaluation of actual delicts; 3. risks of engaged reactions; 4. discrepancies between the evaluation of the delict and the expected punishment in case of criminal prosecution. 3. The findings concerning the tendencies of citizens to active application in the struggle with criminality, the regularities of their engaged conduct and social factors affecting them, provide a certain basis for bringing about optimum conditions for a socially desirable motivation of citizens to positive activities. The knowledge resulting from the investigations is a spur for and a contribution to precisioning of realistic possibilities how to make use of citizens and wider collectives in the fight with criminality and, in particular, makes possible closer establishment of the spheres (forms and means) of purposeful operation leading to deeper participation of citizens in the struggle with criminality. Significant for inst. are the findings concerning the relations of tendencies to engaged reactions to social and demographical attributes revealing for example substantial distortions of legal consciousness of younger age group members as well as the unsatisfactory situation in some localities given by minimum social control atmosphere of individuals etc. and pointing therefore to which age categories, localities etc. intentional operation of the proper means should be directed. An important starting point is further the information relative to the factors proper of engaged reactions. From it follow numbers of concrete tasks and instillations with respect to the forming of attitudes of citizens to criminal proceedings agencies, to the need of strengthening the relations of trust in such agencies, of drawing corresponding conclusions from the ascertained tendencies of citizens to stricter or milder evaluation of some delicts (similarly with respect to questions of risks of engaged reactions, absence of adverse reactions to socially dangerous acts, discrepancies between the citizens’ own evaluation and the expected court decisions etc.). To point out and influence favourably all the factors of engaged tendencies in the fight with criminality and to create gradually a complex of optimum conditions for socially desirable motivation of citizens to positive activity is not just a matter of legal education alone. This concerns, namely, the education of the socialistically thinking and acting citizen as well as other fields beyond the sphere of education. Connected therewith is that affecting the factors of active tendencies in the struggle with criminality is a matter for government agencies, social organisations as well as for individual citizens. For the sphere of legal education so much stressed these days the information on the tendencies to engaged reactions in the fight with criminality is the absolutely indispensable starting point. It shows which problems in this sector have to be gradually solved by means of the instruments of legal education. It is from this information that the answer to the question of adequacy of the means, forms and methods affecting the activities of citizens, the division and organisation of the operation in this respect can be deduced. The information presented shows also to which key problems of the citizens’ activity in the fight with criminality the operation of the means of legal education should be directed. The point is that, taking account of realistic ideas of the citizens’ tendencies to active operation in the struggle with criminality, legal consciousness be formed by the means of legal education so as to achieve in the tendencies to positive activity, which are a significant factor of the fight with criminality in the society of the socialist state, further important progress.