The Working Group on Internal Security is a new NISPAcee Working Group, which objectives are:

• to present theory-based country case-studies in working group following detailed research program and summarizing them into comparative studies;

• to provide common ground for comparative research, joint research programs and international cooperation on training and exchange of experience between practitioners and researcher of prison, police and other areas on internal security.

BACKGROUND

At the beginning of 1990-ies in many Central and Eastern European countries policing (often called also "militia"), implementation of imprisonment and other spheres of internal security were military or paramilitary organizations with little transparency and accountability, with highly horizontal, byrocratic, and authorial organization and management culture, with poorly educated and also poorly paid stuff, and high risk of breaching of human rights (in the sense of the Western Europe has understood the concept of human rights, at least) and little legal guaranties for the person they approached. During last two decades in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe arrangement of these state functions has been de-militarized, often administration of prison and some functions of police or prosecution have been moved from dominion of ministry of internal affairs to dominion of ministry of justice. The set of legislation in these areas has gone through tremendous changes and developments, introducing new legal guaranties for people and making agencies and officers more accountable for their decisions and activities. There is usually remarkable shift towards openness and transparency in these organizations (introduction of visiting boards, legal ombudsman and other control bodies, allowing CPT visits, etc) and in many cases the organizational culture and management has become less formal and authorial. For a great share these changes have been introduced due to external influence (preparation for joining EU, membership in UN, reports of OECD, etc), but there are also internal factors (use of ICT, improvement of physical conditions (buildings and erections, vehicles, equipment), change in social values, economic conditions, general constitutional and legal framework, etc) having impact on those changes. The development of policing and implementation of imprisonment has been very different in countries of Central and Easter Europe, even if there have been similar conditions and developments in other areas of government.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The first problem addressed by the working group is lack of information about arrangement, organization, institutions and activities of police, prisons and other agencies of internal security. The best database on prisons has collected by the International Centre for Prison Studies of University of Essex in United Kingdom (http://www.prisonstudies.org/), but little country-studies have been carried out among countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Also some quality research has been carried out by The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI; http://www.heuni.fi/).
The institute has published three high quality researches on the topic: Roy Walmsley (2003) Further Developments in the Prison Systems of Central and Eastern Europe - Achievements, problems and objectives. Helsinki: HEUNI 2003. HEUNI Publication No. 41, Roy Walmsley (1996) Prison Systems in Central and Eastern Europe - Progress, problems and the international standards. Helsinki: HEUNI 1996, and Roy Walmsley (1995) Developments in the Prison Systems of Central and Eastern Europe Helsinki: HEUNI 1995, HEUNI Paper No. 4. Despite to these publications, there is relatively little research done at the field of administration of internal security.

Scholars and practitioners who are active in area of public administration, public law or internal security and who are interested in research and study of agencies and policies of internal security are invited to submit papers for the Working Group on Administration and Management of Internal Security Agencies on the following topics:

• Arrangement and organization. In this session papers about overall structure and arrangement of internal safety and security, organization, culture and management of agencies of internal security, financing of agencies of internal security, cooperation and relations between agencies;

• Personnel standing and management. In this session papers about personnel management, leadership, salaries and social security, training and education and other issues related to personnel management of agencies are expected.;

• Policies and strategic planning. In this session papers about policies, implementation of policies and strategies of internal security are expected. This session also hosts papers on general problems, statistics and public self-organization of internal security (such as crime rate, incarceration rate, statistics of imprisonment etc or theoretical or philosophical approaches to solving problems of crime and public order);

• Implementation and law. In this session papers on legislation on internal security (laws, regulations, bylaws etc.) and court practice, on implementation studies, law and economic, and studies on institutional theory are expected. This session also hosts papers on corruption and other misuse of public power in agencies and bodies of internal security.

The paper selection will be based on submitted abstracts, which have to clearly define objectives and research questions (i.e. what the researcher wishes to find) and to carefully describe the research design and methods (i.e. what the researcher will actually do). The papers should demonstrate a very good knowledge of related literature in both the local language and in English.