The research idea was to investigate the transformations of the criminal law and the professional, political and public criminological discourses in Lithuania after 11th of March 1990 (separation from the USSR) using quantitative and qualitative data analysis combining traditional historical and sociological methods, as well as innovative data analysis and visualization methods (using digital humanities tools).
In addition to the academic monograph and an international peer-reviewed journal publication, the project will provides this digital tool (map, statistical, social graphs and database with data archiving and analysis extensions).
This tool is designed as a digital model of Lithuania’s gradual disintegration from the former Soviet legal space (mostly in the 1990’s, before Lithuania completed its European legal integration joining the EU and NATO in the early 2000s). However, the research also revealed Lithuania’s similarities with the other post-Soviet countries – as you can see in the “MAP NO 3: NETWORKS AND CONNECTIONS”.
From 1990 to 2004 Lithuania was undergoing a reform of criminal law and the system of criminal prosecution, in order to separate from the Soviet system and create a new criminal prosecution system, based on Western democratic principles and the respect for human rights. In this time period the foundations for the new laws and the reform of legal institutions and legal practices were created.
As the map of criminal law reveals – similar processes are going on in the whole post-Soviet region. However, the model of post-Soviet transformation that determined the legal and social development of the former USSR Republics varied from country to country – so did the concept of punishment and understanding of the crime problem.
As we know, some post-Soviet countries did not implement the “rule of law” principle-orientated reforms successfully – and shifted back towards the direction of the authoritarian model.
As Mark Galeotti wrote in his book “The Vory: Russia’s Supermafia” (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), the synergy between Mafia networks and former Soviet repressive structures was a background in the process of the formation of a new Russia’s political elite and led the regime of Vladimir Putin to power.
This project aimed to investigate, whether this process in Lithuania was more successful and why.