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TEMA 1: CRIMINAL POLICY Criminal policy The term ‘’criminal policy’’ (Kriminalpolitik) was first used by Feuerbach in 1800 and was described as a comprehensive and extensive study on human nature and the origins of crime. Feuerbach defined Kriminalpolitik as a set of repressive methods with which the State reacts against crime.At that time, the criminal policy was considered a kind of reflection mechanism applied to Criminal Law (Strafrecht) Marc Ancel includes to this definition issues related to both preventive and repressive measures and defined criminal politics as an organized range of methods used by a society to respond to the criminal phenomenon. There is an extension of the concept in which: a) The repressive method turns to any kind of method, especially those with a restorative or mediative aspect b) The reaction of the State is extended to a response of the entire ‘’social body’’ Crime turns into a criminal phenomenon which includes any sort of conduct against norms, infraction or deviance (to the norms). The response is extended to: - A priori = prevention - A posteriori = reaction Crime phenomenon: infraction and deviance Responses: a priori (prevention) and a posteriori (reaction) The contemporary conceptualization of criminal police moved through an interdisciplinary approach influenced not only by Criminal Law also by Criminology and social-political Contexts. Criminal policy, therefore, has a broader and interdisciplinary scope and appears in diverse segments of society, and goes beyond penal sanctions. Criminal Policy x Criminology Edwin Sutherland (1937) defined criminology as the study of the making of laws, the breaking of laws, and of society’s reaction to the breaking of laws. - The study of crime - The study of those who commit crime - The study of the criminal justice and penal systems. Sutherland went on to argue that the ‘objective of criminology is the development of a body of general and verified principles and of other types of knowledge regarding the process of law, crime, and treatment or prevention’. The criminal phenomenon can be divided in two different things: 1. Deviance (deviant behaviour) 2. Infraction (criminal behaviour) Deviance is a non-conformity to a given set of norms that are not accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society. Deviance is part of the dynamics of a community or society. No society can be divided up in a simple way between those who deviate from norms and those who conform them. Most of us on some occasions transgress generally accepted rules of behaviour. Example: minors act of theft, speed limits (car), smoke marijuana, etc. Deviant behaviour and criminal behavior are NOT synonymous, although in many cases they overlap.

Deviant behaviour means to behave in a way that violates social norms and provokes negative social reactions. It is important to emphasize that the concept of deviant behaviour is relative, it depends on the society and the time in which it occurs. Certain behaviour can be considered deviant in one society and acceptable in another. Criminal Policy Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (1945) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. The Hare Krishnas: tied to the peace and love flower children of the 1960s, the Krishnas, seemed a cultural and spiritual outgrowth of hippies who, having experimented (or continuing to experiment) with drugs, sought some sort of enlightenment unavailable or unattainable via Western religion. Punk is generally regarded as a defining moment in British cultural history. In its rhetoric and style, punk appeared to encapsulate the socio-economic and political climate of the late 1970s. It seemed to form a distinct youth culture that in turn provoked a media-driven moral panic and prompted notable cultural change. Most significantly, punk appeared to politicise cultural practice at a significant juncture in British history. Crime first is a behaviour that harms individuals or the society (social body); and second, is stipulated by law (liberal democracy, legality as principles). Crime is shaped in different societies according to multiple criteria. Sometimes those criteria are even contradictory: - Social power - Influence of social class Who is ruling and for whom? Prostitutition has been legalized in a number of European countries, and drug use and minor trafficking have been decriminalized. Any adult tourist (or other adult) in the Netherlands can legally buy marijuana in coffee shops, and addicts can obtain maintenance doses of other substances from approved medical sources. Italy and Spain likewise tolerate levels and forms of drug distribution that U.S policy makers deplore. Sweden, by contrast, is as intolerant of drug use as in the United States, but is much less punitive about it. In much of Europe unlawful entry into the country is not a criminal act, though in the United States it is The deviant behaviour violates social norms and values while the criminal behaviour violates the law. Patterns of Structure of Criminal Policy - Analyze the set of relations that links and opposes elements in all criminal policy systems. The Invariable of Criminal Policy Every human society establishes its own rules (social, and sometimes legal) according to its values. Based on this phenomenon, two situations can be analyzed: 1. Criminal and Deviant behaviour - a criminal phenomenon in the broad sense. The deviation from the norms in this sense can either be considered a phenomenon of innovation or criminality. 2. This phenomenon causes social disapproval through responses (criminal policies)

From this duality (deviation from norms x social response) emerge invariants. Those invariants are the center of all criminal policies. First Invariant: Deviation from the Norms are very diverse since they refer to the legal notion of the infraction. - it can be criminal or administrative offense - civil: threatens public order or danger to others (compulsory hospitalization of people with mental health condition treatment of alcoholics, etc. ) - the most diffuse nation of undesirable behaviour (deviation from the norm), which created a ‘’problem situation’’. ‘’Norm’’ is, on one hand normative; on the other hand, normal, normality, normalization. Legal norms influence the conceptions of social normality; on the other hand, it is also a fact that social normality tends to influence legal normativity. Independent of the complexity of this mechanism, the fact is that the two concepts remain infraction (I) and deviation (D), as well as those two elements in one concept: infraction-deviation (ID). This is the first common element in criminal policy. Second invariable: The responses of the Social Body a society will never respond to all deviant behaviours but will always respond to some of them. - State Responses: the State stipulates, decides and executes measures and sanctions - Social (‘’social body’’) Responses: social grupos manage to control deviant or criminal behaviour....