NCJ Number
73897
Journal
Revue de droit penal et de criminologie Volume: 60 Issue: 8-9-10 Dated: (August-September-October 1980) Pages: 803-811
Date Published
1980
Length
9 pages
Annotation
A Belgian criminologist, noting the failure of even the most well-meaning and humane penological reforms of the last 25 years to reduce crime and recidivism rates, emphasizes the need for new concepts and solutions.
Abstract
A balanced concept of justice and a truly democratic impetus toward penological reform can only emerge in response to the demands of a concerned and educated public. Unfortunately, public opinion in every country is misinformed about the realities of criminality, criminology, and sociology because it absorbs its ideas from the mass media, especially television. Television coverage of these issues is superficial at best and manipulative at worst. This study argues that the experience of the United States and Sweden, the first countries to implement the concepts of criminality as sickness and criminals as patients to be treated rather than punished, shows a failure of these penological philosophies in preventing recidivism. American public opinion is demanding a return to punitive, severe sentences in the name of law and order. In Sweden, where public reactions are milder, dissatisfaction with the current criminal policies is nevertheless apparent. Indeterminate sentences, parole, and probation are also ineffective and lend themselves to unequal and capricious application. Other penalties, such as community work orders, must be abandoned for other reasons. This study argues that before reforming sentencing and corrections criminal codes must be revised: infractions must be regrouped by rational categories, and clearcut definitions of each criminalized act must be provided, with the reasons for their criminalization. Fines should be used more extensively and imaginatively, not only to compensate crime victims but also to force criminals to make amends for their acts. Incarceration should be used only as a last resort for violent, incorrigible, and dangerous offenders. Public outcries for a return to repressive and punitive penalties should be resisted: the death penalty is deemed inconceivable in a civilized society and life sentences the most cruelest punishment. Short prison sentences, still used in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, should be used only when a crisis situation must be broken, as a type of shock therapy, as argued by German criminologists. The article concludes with a call for worldwide cooperation among all nations for a global approach to progressive and effective crime control and prevention policies.