Since democracies are relatively new in Eastern Europe and little has been written, much can be learned from looking at the distinctive developments in both legal transitions and the process of criminalization.

This book brings together recent work from researchers and academics engaged in theory, policy and practice, and offers a significant contribution to the study of transition in the fields of criminology, law, philosophy and political science and a critical analysis of future directions in criminalisation in the emerging democratic states of Eastern Europe.

After the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989 and disintegration of the Soviet Union, scholars focused on the problems of legal transitions within the newly emerging democracies. Two decades on, these states are in post-transition conditions; having undergone and continuing to experience political, economic and constitutional upheavals to varying degrees. Criminal law and processes of criminalisation and decriminalisation are at the heart of these changes, and must be understood in the light of the social transitions. A major influence is the old West a relationship that has often been...