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The EU has recently mooted the possibility of harmonising minimum penalties. ‘Minimum criminal penalties’ refers to the lowest sanction available for a judge in a concrete case. Calculating the actual penalty involves legal mechanisms that might mitigate that penalty. Comparative analysis reveals that a distinction needs to be made between minimum penalties included in national criminal codes (in abstracto penalty) and the lowest penalty that might be imposed (in concreto penalty). Although in abstracto minimum penalties are found in the criminal codes of most Member States, they are fiercely opposed in others. In concreto minimum penalties that constitute an absolute limit to the discretion of a judge are even more controversial. Against that background, this contribution reviews whether or not the EU should force the Member States to impose absolute, in concreto minimum criminal penalties. It examines the justifications presented in recent proposals in light of legal and criminological research.

In order to develop an effective criminal justice response, it is crucial to truly understand the phenomena at hand. The analysis of the two phenomena singled out for this contribution -namely trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants -will be focussed at trying to understand the nature and extent of the involvement of organised criminal groups therein.To that end, this article explores what we know, what we do not know and what we should know about the involvement of organised criminal groups in trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. The relationship between organised crime and trafficking in persons , and the relationship between organised crime and smuggling of migrants, is taken into consideration on a multitude of levels. Additionally, serving as a significant counter-weight for organised involvement, it is stressed that a significant role is reserved for un-organised criminality in these phenomena. Because of its importance, this aspect is equally explored and its consequences for criminal justice responses are analysed. On the basis of the findings of enormous variety in criminal involvement in both trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, criminal justice responses are in high need of re-consideration.

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