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Proyectos nacionales

En curso
FAKE PENAL
The #FakePenal project seeks to approach the impact on legislators and judges of the transformation of public and media debate around criminal law resulting from the popularization of social networks. The aim is to critically analyze such transformative impact on criminal policy in an era like this, marked by polarization and misinformation, and within the framework of the eternal debate on the necessity, possibility, and risks of increasing popular participation in the creation of criminal law.

The project starts from the premise that citizen participation should be at the foundation of the construction of criminal law and that it should move towards deliberative participation. In addition to the greater legitimacy of decisions and the higher epistemic value from the way consensus is reached compared to the isolationist approach, we believe that the population is not punitive when well-informed and that, through deliberative processes, a “better” and democratic criminal law could be configured.

However, the project also acknowledges that this ideal of free citizens’ participation in deliberating about the penal system must be contrasted with the real dynamics of communication about crime and the response to it, as well as the configuration of public opinion on criminal matters in which social networks are playing a significant role. We also recognize that the current indications of the impact of social networks predict a context of misinformation, polarization, and simplification that will make well-informed citizen participation around criminal issues more challenging. Therefore, it is essential to understand, and we can approach this empirically, how the new media-social environment influences opinions on criminal law and how public opinion can be informed or transformed in the real world. Only in this way will we be in a real position to know if and how it is possible to configure a more participatory but not more “Fake” (in the sense of misinformed) criminal law than we already have in these times.

Funded by:: Ministry of Science and Innovation.

IUS MACHINA
(Ius-Machina): Sobre las bases normativas y el impacto real de la utilización de algoritmos predictivos en los ámbitos judicial y penitenciario

El proyecto IusMachina busca determinar las bases normativas para el uso de algorítimos predictivos en los ámbitos judicial y penitenciario, así como establecer el impacto real que estos sistemas tienen y pueden tener en los ámbitos mencionados, prestándose especial atención a las implicaciones éticas de la implementación de estas tecnologías. La capacidad de las actuales soluciones algorítmicas para gestionar y procesar datos con gran precisión, unida a la indiscutible existencia de errores humanos y de sesgos en las decisiones judiciales, ha llevado desde hace tiempo a plantearse la utilización de sistemas actuariales basados en la gestión del riesgo tanto en el ámbito judicial y penitenciario, siendo las más conocidas las Herramientas de Valoración del Riesgo de violencia (en adelante, HVR). En una segunda fase más reciente, el aumento de la capacidad informática y la aparición de millones de datos ha llevado a explorar la utilización de técnicas de machine learning y otras de Inteligencia Artificial para mejorar las tomas de decisiones a nivel de justicia penal. Aunque los usos potenciales de unas y otras son múltiples y variados, destacan las soluciones algorítmicas aplicadas a la determinación judicial del delito o de la pena aplicable en general o en concreto en relación con el mismo, englobados dentro de términos (también discutidos) como predictive justice, predictive sentencing, o evidence-based sentencing. Además, se ha de tener en consideración las técnicas actuariales (TVR o Ris-Canvi), instrumentos de predicción de la conducta de los internos de prisiones, que objetivan la valoración individual que la norma reclama y permite en el proceso.

Financiado por: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.

Completed
NEXO. Criminology, empirical evidence, and criminal policy. On the incorporation of scientific data for decision-making regarding the criminalization of behaviors.
This project addresses the possibilities and limits of incorporating criminological scientific evidence into legislative policy in criminal matters, particularly the decision on criminalizing behaviors and increasing penalties. The challenge is approached from a novel perspective that, on one hand, will review how and with what deontological restrictions scientific validation procedures can be incorporated into legislative practice to be useful and improve the rationality of legislative decisions; and, on the other hand, will empirically analyze some of the central assumptions on which the legislator bases decisions about incorporating new behaviors into the Penal Code or increasing penalties for existing ones to verify the validity of the hypotheses.

The penal legislative policy of recent decades, described by scholars as expansive and punitive, is usually argued based on supposed knowledge of reality concerning criminal trends, social demands for intervention, and the deterrent capacity of criminal law, which, however, is not supported by scientific evidence and, in some cases, even contradicts existing evidence. At a time when criminological knowledge is capable of providing adequate frameworks for understanding criminal phenomena and the effects of laws and penalties on people, when Europe demands greater control and evaluation of the rationality of laws, and when scholars, continuing their essential critical spirit, begin to encompass not only the evaluation of legislative outcomes but also the procedures adopted for them, it is essential to define appropriate procedures in legislative practice that increase the legislator’s and society’s knowledge about crime, its causes and effects, and the real preventive possibilities and limits of criminal laws.

Conducted by a research group that has already demonstrated its experience and ability to develop complex and fully applied methodologies to specific problems in previous national plan calls and other national and international projects, NEXO proposes a methodological design of tasks in work blocks adapted to the two general objectives: (1) effectively incorporating empirical evidence into the legislative process, and (2) reviewing the empirical assumptions of legislative decision-making regarding the criminalization of behaviors. These will be achieved through empirical studies on the compliance with norms and the deterrent capacity of penalties, punitive attitudes and the legitimacy of legislative policies, or the perception of crime and its influence on the creation of social alarms, among others. All of this will materialize in a protocol for the correct inclusion of scientific evidence in political-legislative decision-making on the criminalization of behaviors, aiming to improve legislators’ knowledge and, thereby, increase the rationality of laws, citizens’ trust in institutions in general and, particularly, in the justice of the criminal system, essential conditions for better compliance with laws and social well-being.

Funded by: Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness.

InfractorXs . "Who copies, who downloads, and why? Prevalence and gender differences in justice intuitions and compliance with intellectual property rights."
InfractorXs aims to address and study the factors influencing the infringement of intellectual property rights by men and women on the Internet. The objective is to acquire relevant knowledge that can inform legislative policy at the level of public and private law. This is based on the hypothesis that compliance with norms is closely related to the community’s intuitions of justice and that the high number of infringers of these rights on the Internet is not evenly distributed according to the type of behavior and gender. From here, the aim is to detect the extent to which social and individual perceptions of the protection of copyright, as well as the increased likelihood of sanctions being imposed and enforced (derived from a change in civil sanctioning practice), would affect the effective respect for these rights.

Funded by: Generalitat Valenciana

Ni1Fora. Legitimacy in Justice and Vulnerable Groups (2018-2020)
The proper functioning of the criminal justice system can only thrive under conditions of legitimacy, not only objective and intrinsic to the system itself but also the legitimacy perceived by all citizens who daily use the different justice agencies and interact with their main actors. Although the study of the legitimacy of the criminal justice system has been widely and vigorously addressed by various social and legal sciences over the past 30 years, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, it is only in the last decade that these empirical approaches to the phenomenon of legitimacy have gained greater relevance in our country and have had a greater impact on the processes of improving criminal political-legislative decision-making. This has been the starting point for a series of projects developed within the framework of the Ni1Fora research project, funded by the Conselleria de Justícia, Administració Pública, Reformes Democràtiques i Llibertad Públiques between 2018-2020, which have addressed issues related to procedural justice, the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, and access to justice for vulnerable groups, as well as support for penal mediation and restorative justice.

Funded by: Generalitat Valenciana

CiberHache. Incitement to Violence and Hate Speech on the Internet. Real Scope of the Phenomenon, Typologies, Environmental Factors, and Limits of Legal Intervention.
CiberHache addresses the analysis of a specific type of cybercrime, incitement to violence, and hate speech on the Internet, based on the recognition, on the one hand, of the social changes that the Internet is generating and the social demand for legal intervention against these types of behaviors, and the consequent willingness of public authorities to provide specific legal regulation; and, on the other hand, of the existence of a multiplicity of behaviors that could be encompassed within the somewhat vague generic idea of “violent communication on the Internet” but that are distinct from each other in terms of the legal goods they affect, the very different intensity of impact on these interests, and specifically, how close or far each is to the violence that is intended to be prevented. While the legal analysis of the criminal response to discriminatory hate has already been addressed, CiberHache entails a novel approach for two essential reasons: First, because, in line with the research projects carried out by our team, CiberHache is multidisciplinary not only in the origin of its members but also in its methodologies and approaches. It aims to obtain a real image of the incidence and actual scope of the various manifestations of violent communication on the Internet, categorized in a previously non-existent taxonomy, through a national quantitative study and another empirical study of a qualitative nature. Additionally, it seeks to understand the factors shaping cyberspace that determine why these behaviors of verbal violence are proliferating despite the norms that aim to prevent them and to establish the basis for criminological prevention strategies. Second, because the focus of CiberHache is not exclusively racial hate as in other research, but the multiple forms of incitement to violence through the Internet. The legal analysis will not be exhausted in the debate on the criminalization of denialism or the justification of racist violence but will extend to the need to configure appropriate and proportional criminal limits and responses to behaviors of very different natures, ranging from terrorist indoctrination on the Internet, provocation of specific forms of crime, or direct or indirect incitement to commit violent actions, to acts of defense, apology, and moral justification of countless attacks on interests of very different natures, to mere morally reprehensible or repugnant expressions that can generate social alarm and the temptation for legal intervention. This legal analysis, conducted by legal philosophers and criminal law experts and following a prior analysis of the legal responses of other legal systems, can inform future legislative actions already announced in response to realities of very different natures. It will be carried out both from the understanding of cyberspace as an enhancer of violent attitudes and from the essential determination of the fundamental principles of a criminal law in a democratic state governed by the rule of law that does not intend to silence the right to freedom of expression.

Funded by: Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness.

Cibercriminalidad: Detection of Deficits in Its Legal Prevention and Determination of Victimization Risks for Better Situational Criminological Prevention.
This research project focuses on cybercrime, an increasingly significant criminal phenomenon, both quantitatively and qualitatively, as the number of people accessing cyberspace and the personal, economic, social, and political assets that can be affected by it grow. The study will focus on detecting legal protection deficits and analyzing factors related to victim behavior that influence the occurrence of cybercrime, aiming to improve the legal response, increase criminological prevention, and reduce the risks of victimization through the creation of safe conduct protocols in cyberspace.

The hypothesis is that although the phenomenon has not yet reached its maximum level of development, significant preventive deficiencies are already evident, both from a legal and criminological perspective. The legal deficiencies are evidenced by the small number of existing judicial resolutions, and it will be necessary to determine whether this is due to the phenomenon’s limited importance or a concatenation of factors related to the difficulty of judicial prosecution of these offenses. The criminological prevention deficiencies, on the other hand, are related to the lack (or reduction) of formal or informal crime control instances and the consequent absolute dependence of the victim on their own security. Therefore, in addition to a criminological review of the phenomenon, which is not easy given its mutability, a dogmatic review of the legal norms will be necessary to determine which types of cyberattacks receive criminal responses and which do not, and to subsequently assess whether the response to new behavior modalities is sufficient and proportionate. Alongside this, two empirical studies will be conducted. The first, more qualitative, will involve analyzing the files of the Alicante Provincial Prosecutor’s Office related to crimes committed in cyberspace to specify which crimes reach the courts and which do not, as well as to begin analyzing criminological risk factors in the behaviors of victims and aggressors. The second, which will provide the main results of the project, will involve an initial survey on the use of ICT and victimization by cybercrime, for the subsequent construction and validation of a questionnaire on the prediction of the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime. This study will relate the influence of ICT use with becoming a crime victim, based on the study of criminological opportunity theories and with special attention to modifying situational prevention parameters to the non-physical-spatial realm of the Internet.

With these cross-disciplinary, legal, psychological, and criminological research objectives, the project could only be carried out by a multidisciplinary research group led by a principal investigator (PI) expert in cybercrime from a legal and criminological perspective. This group is part of its own research group, Crímina, for the study and prevention of crime, with proven experience in conducting empirical research. Its objective in the coming years is to dedicate its resources almost exclusively to this new line of research on cybercrime, the criminal phenomenon that will be the focus of much of the legal and criminological research of the future, as it constitutes a new form of crime that cannot be addressed with preventive instruments designed for crime in physical space.

Funded by: Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness

RISKMENT. Environmental Risk Assessment of Accidents Involving Alcohol: Geographic Variables, Procedures, and Tools to Improve the Effectiveness of Controls
RISKMENT is an innovative research project aimed at implementing road safety improvement measures based on scientific knowledge. It involves identifying spatial and temporal variables related to the risk of accidents linked to alcohol or drug consumption and creating, from them, an actuarial tool that allows a geographical estimation of the risk to improve the effectiveness of the placement of control devices for these substances.

The project, based on the theoretical and practical knowledge of crime analysis through Geographic Information Systems (GIS), will implement two mathematical models that, using official accident and detected infraction data, along with environmental information and geosocial network data, will conduct a multi-criteria analysis. This analysis will identify and prioritize road segments with the highest probability of detecting these behaviors to globally classify those most successful in terms of their spatial-temporal location. RISKMENT builds on the initial findings of research conducted in the field of environmental criminology, which describe spatial-temporal patterns and the most suitable analytical techniques for identifying concentrations of infractions (Miró et al., 2016) and other epidemiological analyses on accident concentration patterns (Gómez-Barroso et al., 2015), where the data analyzed came from mobility and road safety agencies. The project aims to go further by systematizing, through a risk model that for the first time in our country analyzes the different geographical patterns of various types of offenders (occasional, repeat, multiple offenders), to identify the hotspots where influenced driving may occur and where police surveillance actions should focus. This will involve, in addition to classic variables about roads, vehicles, and users, data from geosocial networks like Waze or SocialDrive.

Furthermore, following the preventive process proposed by Ekblom (1998) and methodologies such as iRap (International Road Assessment Program), a classification system for control devices will be built, weighing different variables related to accident rates and the detection of offenders. The project will integrate, through the risk assessment model, geolocated data from three sources: information on the reporting of incidents on roads and the announcement of surveillance activity by the administration on geosocial networks; accident locations and their characteristics from DGT databases; and lastly, the locations of various environmental factors that contribute to road insecurity, such as establishments where alcoholic beverages are consumed or sold. This will provide road surveillance and supervision resource managers with a tool that offers essential support in decision-making under uncertainty, allowing the optimization of resource allocation to control points or road segments of interest.

Funded by: Directorate General of Traffic (Ministry of the Interior)

MAPVIAL. Environmental Criminology, Police Intervention, and Decision-Making for the Prevention of Influenced Driving and Accident Rates. Analysis in a Province
This project addresses the analysis of the potential effectiveness of using novel techniques that describe the spatiotemporal distribution of specific events (Geographic Information Systems, hereinafter GIS) to improve decision-making in the placement of drug and alcohol controls. This aims to optimize police resources to both prevent risky behavior in the road environment, especially among repeat offenders, and ultimately reduce accidents. The acknowledgment that alcohol-impaired driving is a major cause of road mortality and that some offenders are repeat violators led to the prohibition of such behavior and the implementation of intensive police surveillance and supervision actions such as random alcohol and drug checks. These aim to reinforce the deterrent role of criminal and administrative norms since, as scientifically proven (Miró, Bautista, 2013), it is the certainty of the sanction associated with the behavior, rather than its potential severity, that deters its occurrence. However, their deterrent effectiveness does not ensure their efficient use, as highlighted by some authors who doubt their impact as a protective factor for road accidents (Tay, 2005). Therefore, it is essential to use modern techniques such as GIS to understand where various road events occur, compare the location differences necessary for analyzing the potential routes and origins of “influenced” drivers, and thus optimize resources and direct controls towards preventing risky behaviors and reducing accidents.

The MAPVIAL project proposes applying Crime Mapping techniques to road crime and accidents to understand the spatiotemporal patterns of these events and delve into various GIS techniques, selecting the most suitable ones for future widespread use. To this end, after an initial analysis of influenced driving regulation and its control, and a subsequent discussion group with traffic surveillance officers to understand the spatial distribution of these behaviors and the police supervision strategies used, information from accident and offender databases, as well as prosecutor procedures on alcohol-impaired driving in the province of Cádiz, will be obtained and geocoded. Specifically, four types of events will be analyzed, ranging from maximum to minimum control of location by the supervisor, such as: a) alcohol and drug checks, b) reports of influenced driving, c) traffic accidents with positive alcohol and/or drug levels, and d) accidents without alcohol. With this information, event maps and other techniques will be prepared using geographic information systems to reveal distribution patterns and, therefore, the places and times where these behaviors concentrate. The first result will be the development of a methodology for collecting this information and, secondly, key knowledge to establish the environmental conditions of these patterns, without which the origin locations of these behaviors cannot be known.

Funded by: Directorate General of Traffic (Ministry of the Interior)

XQIncumplen. Analysis of the Effective Compliance with Road Legislation and Detection of Risk Factors for Repeated Traffic Rule Violations in Spain
The XQIncumplen project was created to address one of the main future challenges in road safety: the prevention and treatment of risky behaviors by those who continuously violate traffic rules, particularly those who do so despite having been previously sanctioned. Through the implementation of an innovative and pioneering empirical study in Europe, an evaluation will be conducted of the determining factors of compliance derived from Deterrence, Social Influence, and Legitimacy models. This will allow the construction of explanatory and predictive models of compliance with two rules, the violation of which results in a significant portion of road accidents in Spain: speed limits and blood alcohol limits, by repeat offenders. The scope of the study compared to its predecessor will allow the generalization and extrapolation of results to the population of Spanish drivers who repeatedly violate the rules, as well as the identification of key factors that should be considered in any prevention policy and program aimed at reducing recidivism.

Funded by: Directorate General of Traffic (Ministry of the Interior)

+ÉTICOS. Evaluation of Transparency in Public Administrations (2016-2019)
More than five years after the enactment of Law 19/2013, of December 9, on transparency, access to public information, and good governance, and its full entry into force on December 10, 2015, for regional and local entities in accordance with the ninth final provision of the Law, today 83% of the municipalities in the Province of Alicante comply with less than half of the transparency indicators. These and other data related to good public management and transparency practices of local administrations through their active publicity channels, mainly their official websites, have been collected in the results reports of the +ETICOS research projects, +ETICOS 2.0 (with the development of an automatic search tool for transparency indicators), and more recently addressing citizen perception of compliance with transparency indicators in +3TICOS. In this context, and with further development in business and private corruption areas, +E4TICOS evaluates the effectiveness of complaint mailboxes, or in their extension, the so-called “ethical mailboxes” and good governance tools, among others, which currently stand as a means not only of pursuing irregularities in public entities but also of increasing the legitimacy of local administrations and consequently strengthening their democracy. This series of projects has been developed within the framework of the grants for the Promotion and Subsidy of Transparency and Participation Activities 2016-2019 of the Conselleria de Transparència, Responsabilitat Social, Participació i Cooperació of the Generalitat Valenciana.

Funded by: Generalitat Valenciana

Saf_e. Scope of Cybercrime Against Minors in the Community of Castilla y León
The Saf_e project is divided into two phases. In the first phase, an Internet risk detection will be conducted by analyzing data on the use and habits of minors, aged between 9 and 17 years, in the Community of Castilla y León, as well as the coping strategies implemented in schools. In the second phase, a general action plan will be developed regarding the safe use of ICT, school coexistence, and Internet risks.

The specific objectives of the Saf_e project are as follows:

Analyze the Internet usage habits and derived risks of students in Castilla y León.
Specify the cybersecurity habits of students and the devices they use inside and outside the school environment.
Determine the protection and risk factors for preventing cybercrime.
Understand the response dynamics of schools to the phenomenon, obtaining information on how cybercrime is prevented and addressed.
Develop a comprehensive tool for preventing cyberbullying and cybercrime for non-university students in Castilla y León.
More specifically, the objectives of each phase are:

Phase 1:
Establish the prevalence of cybervictimization among minors.
Understand the risk and protection behaviors that influence the phenomenon.
Learn about the actions taken by schools in cases affecting school coexistence through dual sources: minors and teachers.

Phase 2:
Define specific tools for preventing ICT usage risks among minors based on the information obtained about school actions from Phase 1 questionnaires.
Provide schools in the autonomous community of Castilla y León with an action protocol containing a detailed sequence of guidelines to properly address the consequences of ICT misuse.
Overall, the project will enable an understanding of the reality to prevent the cybervictimization of minors and minimize existing risks in cyberspace for this group. It will also provide teachers with tools to adequately respond to cases of cybervictimization affecting the school environment.

Funded by: Junta de Castilla y León

CiberEduca2.0 Safe Internet Use in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura. Initial Analysis of Internet Habits, Usage Risks, and Victimization Factors Among Minors in Extremadura
This project is focused on detecting victimization risks and various forms of violence impacting minors in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura, to accurately determine the prevalence of cyberattacks through the analysis of Internet usage and consumption among these minors. Research was conducted targeting the population of Extremadura aged between 11 and 17 years, due to their status as a particularly vulnerable group to cybervictimization. The specific objectives of the project are to: analyze the existing Internet usage habits in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura; determine the prevalence of cybercrime, both in its economic and social aspects; identify protection and risk factors that promote the prevention of cybervictimization; and detect behavioral patterns that may be linked to excessive Internet use, a precursor or indicator of potential addictive behaviors.

Funded by: Junta de Extremadura

CiberApp. Study on the Scope of Cybercrime, Both Social and Economic, Against Minors in the Province of Alicante
Given that the current situation alerts us that cyberspace is a new realm of criminal opportunity largely unknown to researchers, and minors, due to their inevitable and continuous use of ICT, are exposed daily to various cyberattacks without us being fully aware of the sometimes terrible implications. Therefore, understanding and knowing the scope and depth of this new reality is a priority so that public institutions, parents, and educators can protect minors from the various threats that compromise their safety in cyberspace..

Funded by: Provincial Council of Alicante

GrADeT "Traffic Crime Analysis Group"
Based on an agreement formalized in a collaboration protocol between the Prosecutor’s Office for Road Safety, directed by Chief Prosecutor Bartolomé Vargas, the Crímina Group of the Miguel Hernández University, and the City Council of Elche through its Local Police, the GRADET project produces criminological reports on the criminal dangerousness of drivers charged with road safety offenses, which will be incorporated into the judicial investigation by the prosecutor’s office itself. Approaches to these forecasts of future recidivism have been primarily based on experience and empirical studies conducted from various disciplines, such as Criminology, Psychology, or Forensic Medicine. The Crímina Group adds an actuarial approach based on the criminological model of triple criminal risk, which, while riskier and more costly, also allows for objectifying the prognosis and thus increases legal certainty.

Funded by: Special Prosecutor’s Office for Road Safety.

Legislative Evaluation and Reform of the Penal Code in Road Safety: A Study on the Real Preventive Effectiveness of Criminal Laws
Based on the granting of a Research Project by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (National R&D&I Plan 2008-2011) to researchers from the Crímina Group and the University of Granada, this project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the reform of the Penal Code in road safety by studying its real significance on people’s driving behavior. A population survey is being conducted on the perception of driving before and after the latest penal reforms, which will help elucidate not only the effects that criminal laws have on driving but also how these laws should be communicated to better achieve their preventive effects. The project stems from the feeling that in recent decades, the content of traffic criminal laws (by criminal law doctrine) and the personality of drivers (especially by Psychology) have been thoroughly studied in our country. However, unlike in other countries like the USA and those influenced by it, the same attention has not been paid to analyzing the actual impact of the former on the behavior of the latter.

Funded by: Ministry of Science and Innovation

Analysis, Perception, and Treatment of the Problem of Youth Gangs in the Community of Valencia
Crímina has signed an agreement with the Sindicatura de Greuges to carry out the empirical study that will be part of the official complaint about the problem of youth gangs in the Community of Valencia initiated by this high Valencian institution. The primary objective, given the potential problem posed by youth gangs in the Community of Valencia, is to reliably understand the extent of the problem to determine whether it is indeed a potential, real, or emerging issue. To this end, Crímina will seek to provide data through the study of prosecution files, interviews with police forces conducting the interventions, and perception studies, including the percentage of youth gang involvement in juvenile delinquency, as well as all related information (age, sex, and other indicators related to background, family conflict, etc.) essential for preventive intervention. This will also help us understand the perception of the problem by the groups involved in its prevention and treatment.

Funded by: Sindic de Greuges of the Community of Valencia.