From June 9 to 11, 2025, Dr. Skirmantas Bikelis, a researcher at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences, broadened the international academic destinations of Lithuanian criminologists by attending the annual Stockholm Criminology Symposium in Sweden.
The symposium impressed the researcher from the very beginning – its opening featured a traditional introductory panel discussion in which the laureates of the symposium, Frances Crook (United Kingdom) and Bryan Stevenson (United States), engaged in conversation with Sweden’s Minister of Justice, Gunnar Strömmer, and the Director of the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Jonas Trolle. The discussion focused on juvenile crime prevention in the context of emerging challenges in Sweden. The laureates emphasized a crucial point: children are children, not monsters.
Later, the laureates delivered individual lectures. Frances Crook expanded on the topic of juveniles in the criminal justice system, highlighting the situation in England and Wales – particularly the age of criminal responsibility and the types of institutions in which minors are incarcerated. Bryan Stevenson, drawing on his own experiences, conveyed three key messages to criminologists: to engage directly with the phenomena they study, to distance themselves from misleading narratives that arise from detached analysis, and to maintain hope.
During the symposium, Dr. Skirmantas Bikelis presented a paper discussing three approaches adopted in Europe to address the ineffectiveness of criminal prosecution for asset legalization: the German solution, which has been incorporated into the new asset confiscation directive (1260/2024) and allows confiscation proceedings within the criminal process even after the termination of prosecution; the Lithuanian approach, in which, after the termination of prosecution, a civil process is initiated to declare the property ownerless – an approach that has proven to be highly effective in practice; and the Latvian solution, which is highly controversial, as it both lowers the standard of proof for prosecuting money laundering (thereby undermining a fundamental principle of criminal procedure) and permits asset confiscation within criminal proceedings without completing the prosecution for money laundering. This latter option raises concerns regarding the presumption of innocence, as it allows the court to deem the property criminal in origin before a conviction is issued – thus making determinations about the essential elements of a crime the accused is charged with prior to a formal verdict.
