Criminal policy, prison and citizens

Throughout the years, criminologists have been developing different theories to reduce crime. Most of these theories focus on prison as a solution (although they have different reasons to justify imprisonment).It has been proved that prison has not been effective in reducingCriminal policy, subsystems and citizens

Throughout the years, criminologists have been developing different theories to reduce crime. Most of these theories focus on prison as a solution (although they have different reasons to justify imprisonment).It has been proved that prison has not been effective in reducing crime. On the contrary, this has made the crime rate grow. This makes us wonder whether penal codes have been designed to prevent crime or to punish criminals.

For a real change in criminal politics we should think in an integral theory of the criminal system which focuses on every subsystem and not only on the punishment theory (as most theories do). Another point to mention is the role of the judges. Judges should analyze each case not as any other case file but as a singular and particular conflict, different from the rest. Judges nowadays play a Jupiter role[1]. Judge Jupiter applies the generality and abstraction of the law to all “similar” situations. He applies the same solution to all “identical” cases. Rights, for him, are given in the shape of a law. He does not focus on the particular case and the written law is what he looks after. His conclusion is a law (“I must apply this punishment”). He does not require of interpretative work. A better criminal policy needs the model of Judge Hermes, who is between the written law and the singularity of the case. He applies the law, but also observes and analyzes the case. He never applies the same judgement twice, as every case is unique and requires an interpretative work. His conclusion is a decision (“I punish for eight years”) and his justification is a practical reason. In this way, judges would be fairer every time they applied a sentence, as they would have a clearer vision of the case, the victim and the offender and his life’s background.

Despite this, to reduce crime in society, I firmly believe that public politics should be applied before it occurs. We can distinguish three kinds of violence: physical, structural and cultural. People in general realize there is violence in society when they get affected by a robbery or any kind of physical violence; but before this violence appeared there must have been cultural and structural violence (poverty, lack of education, people living on the streets, children starving, to mention some). A way of reducing crime is observing and reducing structural and cultural violence through efficient public politics that relate to each other. As a consequence, physical violence will be reduced too, as most people will feel restrained if they have, at least, their basic needs covered. This is what an integral theory of penal system should look after: which and how public politics are offered, the offender’s background and how it could change for better, the way in which the State distributes resources and how every citizen could help reduce crime by destroying cultural violence which made society ignore, ironically, social problems.

[1] Ost, François (2007). Jupiter, Hercules, Hermes, three models of judge. Academy. Journal on the teaching of Law, 4(8), 101–130