Punitywność systemów karnych. Rozważania nad zakresem, formami i intensywnością penalizacji

Abstract

The author's starting point is the assumption that criminal offences are those types of behaviour that, from the point of view of the dominant group in society (at least in abstracto), most strongly affect the goods that it considers most valuable, and that the practice of law enforcement is the clarification and most up-to-date reflection of these views. Of the many possible ways of comparing the functioning of penal systems, the author has chosen in this thesis to select one feature, which is punitiveness. He takes the 'level of repressiveness' as one of the determinants of punitiveness. Another measure is also the extent to which non-repressive measures are applied to those found guilty, followed by the extent to which severe penalties are resorted to instead of milder ones and, within the same type of punishment, to higher levels of punishment instead of the loved ones. The punitive nature of the penal system also manifests itself in the enforcement of the punishment, both in the laws that govern it and in the practice that develops against it. The author presents an analysis of specific data in tables that illustrate the punitive nature of the penal systems of various European countries.