Tímarit lögfræðinga - 01.10.1989, Side 11

organized congressional meetings, colloquia as well as educational and
training activities all over the world.
d) The International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation. — The
work done by the three Associations is completed by the International
Penal and Penitentiary Foundation, actually under the chairmanship
of Helge Rostad, Judge of the Supreme Court of Norway in Oslo. It
is primarily active in the field of prison research and prison reform.
Founded in 1950, when the activities of the International Penal and
Penitentiary Commission, with its headquarters in Berne, were taken
over by the General Secretariat of the United Nations, it has continued
an important part of the reform activities accomplished by the former
Commission since its foundation in 1876.
e) The International Committee of Coordination. — These four
organizations are usually called the “Big Four”, because they have
consultative status “B” at the United Nations and exert considerable
influence on the work of the Criminal Justice Branch of the United
Nations in Vienna. The “Big Four” are united in the International
Committee of Coordination, the Secretary-General of which is the
Attorney General at the Court of Appeals in Milan, Adolfo Beria di
Argentine. He has recently organized an international colloquium of
the leading members of the “Big Four”. The topic was “Organized
Crime and Terrorism”. This colloquium operated in preparation of one
central subject to be treated by the next International Congress of
the United Nations on the prevention of crime and the treatment of
offenders. This will be held in 1990. The same subject, by the way,
will be dealt with by a panel discussion at the already mentioned next
Congress of the International Association of Penal Law in Vienna in
October this year.
4. The crisis threatening criminal policy. — The world-wide en-
thusiasm for and confidence in treatment-oriented criminal policy ended
in the early 1960’s, that is both in continental Eourope and in the com-
mon law countries. In Europe this crisis has been most powerfully felt in
Sweden, Denmark and Norway. These are the countries that have
held leading positions in the treatment and therapy-oriented movement.
More than others they have been influenced in their legislation by
demands for reform of this kind and are now more than others con-
cerned by the international set-back. Since a quarter of a century,
modern penitentiary and recidivist research has deeply shaken the
belief that persistent criminals can be resocialized by means of suitable
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