In this study, we analyze the features of modern imprisonment. The author, first of all, starts by pointing out the trend of penal populism which imposes a series of negative consequences for the ...entire social system and then evaluates five main theses related to criticism of the criminal sanctions which were indeed raised by Foucault with an aim to determine whether ultimately, today, something has been altered in the era of global integrations, self-proclaimed democratic societies and increasingly loud proclamations for the protection of human rights and freedoms. The following part of the study is committed to contemplating the positive and negative consequences of life imprisonment, as of latterly initiated punishment in the system of criminal sanctions of the Republic of Serbia, with an allusion to sole comparative law solutions.
The currently applicable Penal Code provides for the possibility of imposing a life sentence on the perpetrator for an act committed by him after a final conviction for a crime against life and ...health, freedom, sexual freedom, public security or for an offense of a terrorist nature. Also with respect to the perpetrator whose nature and circumstances of the act as well as his personal characteristics indicate that remaining at large will pose a permanent threat to the life, health, liberty or sexual freedom of other persons. The above solution was assessed through the prism of the fundamental principle under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland – human dignity. Excluding the possibility of conditional early release deprives the convict of any hope of improving his fate, which should be treated as lifelong mental torture. Since dignity is the source of all human and citizen rights and freedoms and is inviolable, the legal solution adopted in this regard should be assessed negatively. The only extraordinary possibility provided for by law, i.e. the right of pardon provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, is a presidential prerogative, which does not have to be based on social rehabilitation progress during serving the sentence, which contradicts the essence of serving the sentence.
The Act of 7 July 2022, amending the Act – Criminal Code and certain other acts, introduced the possibility of imposing a sentence of life imprisonment without parole into the Criminal Code. The ...legislator provided for two grounds for the optional imposition of an irreducible life imprisonment sentence. The first (Article 77 § 3 of the Criminal Code) is based on formal grounds: a previous conviction for a specific type of crime (against life and health, freedom, sexual freedom, public security, or of a terrorist nature) to life imprisonment or imprisonment for a term of not less than 20 years. The second ground (Article 77 § 4 of the Criminal Code) operates on a substantive condition: the nature and circumstances of the act and the personal characteristics of the perpetrator indicate that the perpetrator’s remaining at liberty would pose a permanent danger to the life, health, freedom, or sexual freedom of others. This article posits that the provisions of Article 77 § 3 and 4 of the Criminal Code are incompatible with Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. As a result of the introduction of this type of punishment in Polish law, we may unfortunately realistically expect other states to refuse to hand over individuals prosecuted for crimes punishable by such punishment or those already sentenced to such punishment.
In the early twentieth century, European criminal justice systems started to discuss new security measures for dealing with persistent habitual criminals and mentally disordered offenders. New ...preventive institutions were established in the Nordics in the shift of the 1920-1930s. Indeterminate confinement came to cover both persistent property offenders, and repeat serious violent and sexual offenders. The success of these measures and the effectiveness of institutional treatment more generally, came to be questioned in the Nordic countries in the 1960s and 1970s. Disappointment about treatment effectiveness, combined with increased stress on legal safeguards, predictability and proportionality in the administration of criminal justice, undermined professional support for indeterminate sanctions and compulsory care. The use of preventive detention was either restricted, as in Denmark and Norway, or abolished altogether, as in Finland and Sweden. However, there were other arrangements in the latter countries, which partly served the same purpose.
Is life without parole the perfect compromise to the death penalty? Or is it as ethically fraught as capital punishment? This comprehensive, interdisciplinary anthology treats life without parole as ...the new death penalty. Editors Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and Austin Sarat bring together original work by prominent scholars in an effort to better understand the growth of life without parole and its social, cultural, political, and legal meanings. What justifies the turn to life imprisonment? How should we understand the fact that this penalty is used disproportionately against racial minorities? What are the most promising avenues for limiting, reforming, or eliminating life without parole sentences in the United States? Contributors explore the structure of life without parole sentences and the impact they have on prisoners, where the penalty fits in modern theories of punishment, and prospects for (as well as challenges to) reform.
How do women - mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces and grandmothers -- make sense of judgment to a lifetime behind bars? InWomen Doing Life, Lora Bex Lempert examines the carceral experiences of women ...serving life sentences, presenting a typology of the ways that life-sentenced women grow and self-actualize, resist prison definitions, reflect on and "own" their criminal acts, and ultimately create meaningful lives behind prison walls. Looking beyond the explosive headlines that often characterize these women as monsters, Lempert offers rare insight into this vulnerable, little studied population. Her gendered analysis considers the ways that women "do crime" differently than men and how they have qualitatively different experiences of imprisonment than their male counterparts. Through in-depth interviews with 72 women serving life sentences in Michigan, Lempert brings these women back into the public arena, drawing analytical attention to their complicated, contradictory, and yet compelling lives.
Women Doing Lifefocuses particular attention on how women cope with their no-exit sentences and explores how their lifetime imprisonment catalyzes personal reflection, accountability for choices, reconstruction of their stigmatized identities, and rebuilding of social bonds. Most of the women in her study reported childhoods in environments where violence and disorder were common; many were victims before they were offenders. Lempert vividly illustrates how, behind the prison gates, life-serving women can develop lives that are meaningful, capable and, oftentimes, even ordinary.Women Doing Lifeshows both the scope and the limit of human possibility available to women incarcerated for life.
Instructor's Guide
The author criticizes the concept of whole life sentence from the aspect of the European standards of protection of the rights of persons deprived of their liberty. The aim of the paper is to ...contribute scientific critique of new solutions on life imprisonment in Serbian Criminal legislations, because the life imprisonment was introduced in 2019, but the conditions on serving the sentence are not prescribed. Conditional release of convict for certain serious crimes are forbidden. On the contrary, the relevant acts of the Council of Europe and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) show that the principle of social reintegration of offenders must be ensured in the national enforcement system, otherwise there is a risk of violating Art. 3 of the European Convention. The state has an obligation to include lifelong prisoners in prison rehabilitation programs, as well as establish and use mechanism to reduce sentences. Using examples from Italy and the Netherlands, the author examines the circumstances due to which the standards of ECHR of execution of life imprisonment in those countries have not been reached. In that way, the attention of the legislator in Serbia is drawn to the fact that the principle of effective offender's rehabilitation (also his right of rehabilitation) must not be neglected even when the crime needs to be reacted to the strongest sanctions, with a lifelong imprisonment.
Wright et al discuss their study on the challenges of long life imprisonment from a young age in England. In recent years, the changing composition of the life-sentenced prison population in England ...and Wales has been cause for significant concern among operational and managerial staff. In particular, HMPPS has been confronted with an increasing number of individuals coming into prison--particularly young people, in their late teens and early twenties--who are serving life sentences with long minimum tariffs. Their research began in 2012, against the backdrop of an already rising lifer population and associated concerns among senior practitioners. There had been little recent research on the experience of serving life imprisonment in England and Wales, particularly for those serving sentence lengths that had previously been considered barely survivable.
In this address I argue that large reductions in unproductive and unjust uses of imprisonment requires curtailment of the over use of life imprisonment. I go on to discuss how criminologists should ...engage the policy process to achieve material reductions in prison populations by the accumulation of many incremental reductions in the overuse of incarceration.
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