Alternative and Informal Systems of Crime Control and Criminal Justice

Otto Hahn Research Group

The Otto Hahn Research Group on Alternative and Informal Systems of Crime Control and Criminal Justice studies new types and methods of crime prevention, crime repression, and conflict resolution in various crime control and criminal justice systems. The typical trial-centered systems of criminal justice are approaching their functional and logistical limits. This in turn increases the significance, in practice, of procedural mechanisms and legal institutions aimed at improving criminal justice administration, specifically in terms of prevention, procedural economy, and statistical results. At the same time, there is evidently a growing need for a holistic, normative, theoretical, and comparative examination of modern techniques of administrative crime prevention, less bureaucratic forms of discretionary prosecutions and case disposals, technologically evolved and highly complex crime-fighting and justice administration tools, alternative types of conflict resolution (including mediation and plea bargaining), informal soft-law and compliance programmes as procedural mechanisms in economic crime cases, as well as other types of procedure designed to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency by shortening, simplifying, and potentially avoiding conventional criminal investigations and trials. As such, the research conducted by the Otto Hahn Group addresses, in a comparative and model-based way, crucial questions of relevance today by focusing primarily on the factors and problems of social legitimacy and effective human rights protection associated with contemporary and constantly evolving mechanisms of crime control and criminal justice.