Since the summer of 2023, researchers from the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences – Dr. Rūta Vaičiūnienė, Dr. Simonas Nikartas, and PhD candidate Liubovė Jarutienė, under the leadership of Dr. Artūras Tereškinas – have been implementing the project “Changes in prison officers’ professional roles within the shifting custodial sentencing policy and practice” (PRISTA). The aim of this project is to analyse the dilemmas Lithuanian prison officers face in their attempts to implement their professional role and to examine how this role has been changing in the context of current reforms.

Based on a large body of empirical data collected during the implementation of this project – including semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with Lithuanian prison officers and policymakers – Law Institute researcher Dr. Rūta Vaičiūnienė and Goda Dainauskaitė published an article titled “The Ideal Prison Officer Reconsidered: Between Institutional Expectations and Everyday Practice” in the Criminology Studies (Kriminologijos studijos) journal of Vilnius University Press.

In this article, intended for a Lithuanian audience, the authors examine both global and local shifts in the penal system – including transformations in institutional governance and penal philosophy, the rise and expansion of managerial approaches in prisons, and changes in power dynamics and structures. This context significantly shapes the professional life of prison officers – it is not only about political declarations and strategic plans, but also a constant element of their everyday work.

Drawing on the insights and experiences of policymakers and prison officers, the article discusses the challenges of policy development and implementation, the everyday difficulties of working in prison, and the evolving role of resocialization unit specialists – contact officers – as well as the alignment of this role with institutional expectations and practical realities.

The abstract in English is available here (the article is in Lithuanian).

On 16-17 October 2024, Lithuanian and foreign researchers presented papers on human-centric artificial intelligence at the international conference "Human-Centric AI: ethics, regulation and safety", which took place at Vilnius University (VU). The event, organised by the Faculty of Law of Vilnius University, was an interdisciplinary one, and the speakers considered the ethical, safety and regulatory challenges of artificial intelligence in the context of various potential uses of the technology. On the first day of the conference, Monika Šukytė, a junior researcher and a PhD student at the Law Institute of Lithuanian Centre of Social Sciences and Vilnius University Faculty of Law, presented her research.

The PhD student started her presentation "Bias in Facial Recognition Technologies: How it Happens and What is at Stake" by presenting the consequences of biased results in facial recognition technologies. She discussed a case that was reported in the international media, in which US police officers arrested a person unrelated to the crime after relying on a false identification result from facial recognition technologies. The two men were linked only by their dark skin colour.

In her assessment of biased AI systems, Šukytė drew attention to a research-based conclusion: algorithm errors are not just an isolated technical problem, but also a combination of mistakes made by the actors who develop, use and regulate facial recognition technologies.

In the context of regulation, she said, it is the EU legislators who have an important role to play in addressing the challenges posed by biased facial recognition technologies and the discriminatory practices they entail. "However, the new EU AI Act does not fully fill the gaps in the application of these technologies in law enforcement, as it introduces a confusing system of exceptions," concluded M. Šukytė.

The video of the presentation by PhD student M. Šukytė (from 37:49 to 49:30) can be viewed here.

Presentation slides (in English).

We are delighted that a research project idea recently proposed by researchers at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania. The new project "(Not)prolonging the working life of older women: legal environment, guarantees and intentions" (VAM) will be implemented by an interdisciplinary team of researchers (led by prof. dr. Ingrida Mačernytė- Panomariovienė) in the period 2024-2027.

Taking into account the increasing life expectancy, demographic challenges of ageing and recommendations for extending the working age across the European Union, the project research team will assess the legal framework and provisions on women's working age limits in Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Estonia, and will identify good practices in the Baltic region with regard to the working lives of older women.

The results of the project will be published in a monograph by an international publishing house, and the new ideas and insights gained from the research will be published in scientific articles and presented in conferences.

The research team of the project consists of: prof. dr. Ingrida Mačernytė-Panomariovienė (project leader), prof. dr. dr. Sarmitė Mikulionienė, dr. Kristina Ambrazevičiūtė, and PhD student Aistė Leščinskaitė.

More information about the project here.

On October 29th, a roundtable discussion took place at the Supreme Court of Lithuania titled “Issues of Applying the Principle of Proportionality and the Standard of Proof in Controlling Illicit Enrichment”. The event was organized as part of the Criminalization of asset legalization in the system of criminal profit control strategies (LEKOSTRA) project, implemented by the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, which aims to examine the criminalization of asset legalization within the criminal profit control system. The project leader, Dr. Skirmantas Bikelis, delivered the introductory speech, presenting the research team (Dr. Darius Pranka, Dr. Laurynas Pakštaitis, and Goda Dainauskaitė), the project’s objectives, and its relevance. Due to the importance of the illicit enrichment topic, his points were reinforced by the Chairperson of the Criminal Cases Division of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, Prof. Dr. Gabrielė Juodkaitė-Granskienė, who emphasized that this discussion and interinstitutional cooperation are crucial in raising and answering questions about such criminal activities.

During the discussion, Dr. Skirmantas Bikelis presented the questions raised by the LEKOSTRA project and its interim results, providing real examples from cases collected and analyzed during the research. The discussion covered the variety of confiscation strategies known in Europe and highlighted two particularly relevant and debatable practical issues: the standard of proof and the use of indirect evidence in various confiscation strategies, as well as the requirements of the proportionality principle for confiscation strategies.

Following the presentation, judges from the Supreme Court and Vilnius Regional Court, representatives from the Prosecutor General’s Office, Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the Special Investigation Service, the Financial Crime Investigation Service, and the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau, along with legal scholars, engaged in discussions.

This roundtable discussion is part of the project “Criminalization of Asset Legalization in the System of Criminal Profit Control Strategies” (LEKOSTRA), funded by the Research Council of Lithuania, under contract No. S-MIP-23-40.

Photo by the Supreme Court of Lithuania.

Salomėja Zaksaitė, a researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, gave an interview to the weekly newspaper "Savaitė" about cheating in sport. In the article, she outlines the various types of fraud - the use of chemicals such as doping; fixing the outcome of a match; bribes; technological fraud, such as the manipulation of sporting equipment, weights or clothing; or more innocent types of fraud, such as staged fouls. S. Zaksaitė illustrated the different types of fraud with real-life examples, from swimmers wearing clothes that allow them to reach higher speeds to staged, "sold" fouls, which in Yugoslavia at the time were considered to be a special form of sporting excellence.

When discussing cheating, she points out that fraud cases usually do not get publicity and remain behind closed doors in the sports community. The few that are brought to the public's attention face problems of proof in the legal institutions.

While it will not be possible to eradicate cheating from sport completely, according to the criminologist lawyer, there are measures that can reduce the number of cases. These include providing social welfare for athletes, education and values formation for athletes, as well as the creation of better sporting infrastructure, adapting criminal laws to the evolving concept of fraud and, finally, fair play mechanisms for individual sports.

The international conference "Artificial Intelligence and Technology in the Courts", held on October 22, 2024 remotely on the ZOOM platform, was attended by experts and academics from various fields, as well as representatives of the judiciary, judges and prosecutors from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

The conference was opened by the organizers and project "AI in Courts: Challenges and Opportunities" (TeismAI) researchers Dr. Monika Žalnieriūtė and Dr. Agnė Limantė, who highlighted the relevance and importance of the topic for the contemporary legal environment. In her welcoming remarks, the President of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, Dr. Danguolė Bublienė, emphasized that although the application of artificial intelligence in the legal sphere was perceived as a futuristic prospect until recently, it has now become a reality.

During the first panel, the speakers gave presentations on the relationship between artificial intelligence and judicial values. The discussion was moderated by Monika Šukytė, a doctoral student at Vilnius University Faculty of Law and the Law Institute. The second session of the event, which started with the presentation by project leader Dr. Monika Žalnieriūtė on the transparency of judicial activity in the context of artificial intelligence, was devoted to the analysis of the issues of compatibility between legal values and AI tools.

The speakers of the third panel "Jurisdictional Perspectives" discussed the approach of national courts to the use of artificial intelligence in practice, sharing experiences from Belgium, the Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Nigeria and South Africa, while the cases of the Lithuanian and Polish judicial systems were presented by Dr Agnė Limantė. In the last panels of the conference, researchers assessed the application of AI tools in the judiciary in the context of different legal traditions and presented practical examples of application in the represented countries.

Thanks to the organisers, speakers and more than 200 active participants, the conference provided a unique platform not only for discussing the new opportunities created by AI in the courts, but also for rethinking the challenges posed by AI to legal regulation and ethics.

This international conference is part of the project “AI in Courts: Challenges and Opportunities” (TeismAI), funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-MIP-23-73.

On 10th October, on the occasion of the World Mental Health Day, the Lithuanian Prison Service hosted a scientific-practical conference "Professional Challenges and Well-being of Resocialisation Workers". The conference started with a congratulations and award ceremony for the psychologists working in the Service, and was followed by presentations on resocialisation measures and the officers implementing them by two researchers from the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, Dr Simonas Nikartas and Dr Rūta Vaičiūnienė.

Dr S. Nikartas presentation "Needs and expectations of contact officers in the context of prison reforms" was based on the results of the project "Changes in prison officers’ professional roles within the shifting custodial sentencing policy and practice“ (PRISTA). The researcher presented data on the expectations and challenges of Lithuanian prisons‘ contact officers in their daily work with inmates. S. Nikartas emphasised that, in addition to addressing the problems of workload and low salaries, it is also important to pay attention to the emotional well-being of the officers, the quality of their relations in prisons and the prison emotional atmosphere.

Dr Rūta Vaičiūnienė presented insights from her research on the impact of an anger management programme. In her presentation "The practice of applying behavioural correction in the penitentiary system: the case of the Anger Management Programme", the researcher first of all reviewed the results of previous studies on behavioural correction programmes (2017-2018 - proposed model of application of social rehabilitation measures, 2020-2021 - analysed the work with domestic violence offenders). Presenting the analysis of the anger management programme, the researcher discussed both the experiences of the participants and the challenges faced by the programme facilitators. The researcher stressed that the results of the research on the impact of the programme indicate that it has been effective in its application. "However, in terms of continuity and expansion of the programme, it is important to establish clear strategic guidelines that assess the quantitative and qualitative indicators and needs of its application," noted Dr Vaičiūnienė.

Dr Agnė Limantė, a researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, together with Yuliia Moskvytyn, an intern, published a column on the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in wartime on the Ukrainian legal news website "Yur-Gazeta.com". Yuliia, a native of Lviv (Ukraine) and currently studying at Mykolas Romeris University, is doing her internship at the Institute under the UPinLT programme, which finances internships for foreign students in Lithuania.

In a Ukrainian-language commentary, the authors first of all emphasised that this technology has shown incredible results since the first months of the war. "It has influenced the course of military operations and changed their dynamics", the authors said. The data collected suggests that the use of AI-based facial recognition technology has contributed to some 120,000 criminal trials of Russians and their accomplices in Ukraine.

However, according to the authors, the use of this technology also poses a number of risks. The article discusses possible errors in identification, the uncontrolled expansion of the use of FRT, unauthorised use of the technology and aspects of its integration into weapon systems. It also raises the issue of the storage of the large amount of confidential data accumulated by the technology, and the potential for breaches of personal privacy, for example when collecting data from social networks. "During the war years," the authors write, "databases were significantly expanded with photographs of living and dead persons, which in itself raises many ethical debates". Finally, it considers how the infrastructure and skills developed through facial recognition technology will affect everyday life after the war - improved public safety or reduced freedom?

According to the authors of the commentary, while facial recognition technology is having a significant impact on military operations in Ukraine, its risks cannot be ignored. In order to mitigate the risks, the results provided by the technology should not be the only basis for accusing a person. Clear rules for the use of facial recognition technology should also be drawn up, data protection should be ensured, the level of training of operators should be raised and transparent control mechanisms should be developed. This, in the authors' view, would help to reduce potential threats while maintaining the advantages of this innovative technology.

The commentary of the representatives of the Law Institute "Facial recognition technology: risks of use in war" in Ukrainian can be found here.

This year's European Society of Criminology (ESC) conference "EUROCRIM 2024" took place in Bucharest, Romania. It is the furthest eastern city to host the once-a-year event that attracts criminologists from all over the world.

On 13 September, Dr Simonas Nikartas, a researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, gave his second presentation at the Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest. This time he joined the European Society of Criminology's Working Group on Community Sanctions section on "Punishment and rehabilitation: balancing competing goals?".

In his presentation "More probation, more prisoners? Community sanctions and mass supervision in Lithuania", the researcher spoke to the audience about the ever-expanding probation supervision network in Lithuania. Although Lithuania is often known for its high number of prisoners and long prison sentences, he said, Lithuania also has one of the highest numbers of people on probation in Europe.

Dr. Nikartas discussed the reforms of recent decades to reduce the prison population and to strengthen the resocialisation of offenders. As a result, he said, the volume of probation work has increased significantly. However, these reforms create the conditions for the expansion of criminal control, and probation measures such as electronic monitoring can have a separating effect, the researcher emphasised in his paper.