Criminal law, by all means, aims to prevent and to limit criminality. A criminal sanction, imposed against the person who committed a criminal act, is aimed at preventing that the already convicted person repeats his/her act in the future and at preventing that other potential offenders commit the criminal act. In this sense, we are referring to general and to special prevention which represent the purpose of punishment; the difference between penal systems (as well as the development of punitive law within the frame of an individual penal legal system) is often only the difference as to which said type of prevention is emphasized in a certain system or at a certain time. The success of the fight against criminality is, as a rule, assessed as to whether the share of criminality in a certain environment was reduced within a certain time period. The assessment is made by using different methods; however, it is crucial that all the factors which could have influenced either the increase or the reduction of criminality are taken into account. In the part where the success of special prevention is analyzed, recidivism is the most significant indicator, signaling whether the special prevention was successful.
Each fight against criminality is therefore actually a fight against recidivism, due to which the issues of recidivism are still relevant and worthy of the attention of legal experts, as well as of the current political authorities who form the criminal policy. Therein, one must not overlook the penal issues, within the scope of which attention must be paid to the manner of executing criminal sanctions against recidivists, to the importance of treating prisoners during the court procedures and later on, in penal institutions, and to postpenal assistance for recidivists after they have served the sentence. Namely, all of the above said significantly contributes to an individual’s social rehabilitation which is our ultimate goal.
|
