CRIME AND PUNISHMENT’ OF IRREGULAR MIGRATION AT THE CROATIAN BORDERS

Abstract

The influx of illegal migrants and the associated unlawful transfer of people across Croatian 
state borders have led to an increase in public order offences over time. As a result, state 
attorney’s offices and courts are overloaded with cases that rise each year, while human and 
institutional resources remain limited, placing the Croatian prison system under enormous 
pressure. Therefore, interdisciplinary research (sociology and law) presented in this article 
moves away from the victim-centered approach that dominates most current academic and 
policy discussions on irregular migration to Europe and the EU, offering a more data-driven 
perspective based on legal practice and legislative statistics. The research results and qualitative 
sociological analysis identify a causal link between the demand from irregular migrants and the 
supply of illegal smuggling services. The market for such facilitation is co-created by both 
irregular migrants and smugglers, supporting the hypothesis that irregular, or more precisely 
illegal, migration contributes to increased crime. Therefore, the absence of a solution highlights 
the failure of human rights to provide protection to those who truly need it – refugees and 
asylum seekers – as they are absorbed into the multitude of migrant statuses and situations of 
irregular mixed migration to Europe and the EU.