World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

In 1987, the UN General Assembly decided to observe 26 June as the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, as an expression of its determination to strengthen action and co-operation in order to achieve the goal of an international society free of drug abuse.

Drug abuse is one of the most complex issues that the contemporary punishable behaviour suppression policy and criminal law of today have to deal with both worldwide and in Croatia. This can be seen not only from the multi-year data on the total number of reported, accused and convicted persons for any type of this criminal offence or demeanour, but even more from reasonably assumed so-called “black crime numbers” (criminal offences against property, criminal offences of violence, criminal offences of juveniles etc.), which are, directly or indirectly, related to drug abuse.

In the Republic of Croatia, in the ten-year period between 1998 and 2007, public prosecutors’ offices made, concerning adult perpetrators, 46 842 decisions based on criminal reports on drug abuse, which was approximately 7.5% of the total number of decisions made by the public prosecutors’ offices. In relation to all types of criminal offences of narcotic drug abuse, more than two thirds refer to Paragraph 1 (possession of narcotic drugs). The structure of decisions of the public prosecutors’ offices shows that indictment or accusatory motion was submitted in two thirds of cases, while criminal reports were rejected in one thirds of them.

Criminal reports were mostly rejected for two reasons: trivial offence (39% of all rejections) and interest of defendant or society (43%). There were 31 855 persons accused, which made 10.7% of the total number of accusations for all criminal offences in the observed ten-year period. Out of the total number of accused persons, 14.3% were convicted (28 243 persons).

The structural analysis of particular types of criminal offences of drug abuse shows that the most frequent one was the possession of drugs (76.2%), followed by sale of drugs (15.3%). The share of sentences pronounced for the criminal offence of drug abuse shows that adult perpetrators were mostly sentenced to suspended imprisonment (53.4%), unsuspended fine (18.3%), unsuspended imprisonment (16.9%), judicial admonition (6.1%) and educational measures (2.9%).

Concerning the pronounced sentences of unsuspended imprisonment, the most frequent were imprisonment sentences up to 1 year of duration (64.5%), then 1 – 2 year imprisonment (19.4%), 2 – 3 year imprisonment (8.6%), 3 – 5 year imprisonment (5.2%) and imprisonment of more than 5 years (2.3%).

Data show that, on the average, every fifth adult perpetrator was a recidivist, while data for the last observed year show that one of three perpetrators convicted for the criminal offence of narcotic drug abuse was convicted before for the same or another criminal offence.

The sex distribution shows that the share of convicted men was 93.3% and of convicted women 6.7%. Concerning age and educational attainment of convicted adult perpetrators, the most of them belonged to the 18 – 30 age group and their highest level of education was secondary school.

Concerning juvenile perpetrators of the criminal offence of narcotic drug abuse, there were 4 515 juvenile perpetrators reported in the Republic of Croatia in the observed ten-year period, out of which 1 837 were accused (40.7% out of the total number of reports) and 1 520 were convicted (82.7% out of the total number of accusations).

Reviewing all criminal offences for which juvenile perpetrators were convicted in the observed ten-year period, 17.9% of them were convicted for the criminal offence of narcotic drug abuse. The share of juveniles convicted for the possession of narcotic drugs was 57.1%, while the share of younger adults for the same crime was significantly higher (76.2%) in the same observed period. Concerning the sale of narcotic drugs, the share of juveniles was as much as 26.7%, while the share of younger adults was 15.3%.

In the observed ten-year period, out of 1 520 perpetrators who were convicted for the criminal offence of narcotic drug abuse, 1 246 were older juveniles (aged 16 – 18) and 274 younger juveniles (aged 14 – 16). As for older juveniles, there were 9 pronounced sentences of juvenile imprisonment, 70 sentences of suspended juvenile imprisonment and 1 167 educational measures. Out of the total number of educational measures, the most frequent were increased supervision (534) and special obligations (488).

Out of the total number of convicted persons, 1 394 (91.7%) were male and 126 (8.3%) were female persons. Reviewed by age and sex, the majority of those convicted for the criminal offence of narcotic drug abuse were aged 16 (449 male juveniles and 43 female juveniles) and 17 (696 male juveniles and 58 female juveniles).