Numerous changes introduced within the criminal law have had a significant impact on the final model of the penalty of restriction of liberty. The measures adopted in 2015, following the general reform of the criminal law, have turned out to be rather ineffective. Thus, certain steps have been taken to re-model the penalty of restriction of liberty, which, to a large extent meant returning to previous solutions. This paper is primarily focused on analysing subsequent amendments within the substantive criminal law related to the penalty of restriction of liberty, with particular focus on the amendments introduced in 2016.
The penalty of restriction of liberty functions in the Polish criminal law as of 1st January, 1970. The Penal Code of 1969, which introduced this penalty, stated it to be an adjudicated punishment ranging from 3 months to 2 years, in three variants: unpaid, nonsupervised work towards community purposes, deductions of some part of remuneration and referral to work with obligatory deduction. Regardless of the form of punishment, the convicted must adhere to certain additional duties, which subsisted on them under the law or were imposed by the Court. The Act also provided for the possibility of modification of the sentence in the specified range in the proceedings. The legislative body reduced the penalty of restriction of liberty in the Penal Code of 1997 (from 1 month to 12 months) and abolished the form which was to refer the offender to work and withhold some part of the remuneration. Maintaining the extra obligations arising from the Act, however only slightly trimmed, it created a wider possibility of educational influence on the offender through the development of a directory of facultative responsibilities and an authorization by the court of probation officer supervision or another entity. Due to retaining the possibility of making changes during the execution of the penalty of restriction of liberty, it widened their scope. The original content of the penalty of restriction of liberty was subject to different changes, for example in 2010 supervision was abolished, while allowing for the use of a larger range of facultative duties. However, the most serious changes that “hit” the penalty of restriction of liberty were implemented by the Act of 20 February, 2015 (with effect from 1 July, 2015), which raised the maximum statutory punishment up to 2 years, but above all performed its significant development. In place of the two main characteristics it introduced much more variants of this punishment. The penalty of restriction of liberty may, in fact, currently rely on: 1) the obligation to perform unpaid, non-supervised work towards community goals, 2) the obligation to remain in the place of residence or other designated area, with the use of electronic surveillance system, 3) the obligation as stated in article 72 § 1 items 4–7a of the Penal Code, 4) deduction of some part of the remuneration. The above obligations (and deduction) can be adjudicated separately or in overlapping with another (or others), in any combination. Thus it can be calculated, assuming the form of punishment referred to in point 3 as unitary (entailing actually a few options), that the penalty of restriction of liberty may occur in 15 major variants. In the literature it is also allowed to form a sequential content of penalty obligations which are to be carried out in a fixed order, including when they partially overlap. In any case, the sentenced to the restriction of liberty is further required to submit explanations concerning the course of detention and cannot change their habitual residence without the consent of the court. Yet there is the possibility to adjudicate certain obligations which are optional. Quite a wide range of possibilities for modifying the contents of the penalty of restriction of liberty in its executive phase must also be mentioned. All the above means that, at present, the penalty of restriction of liberty presents itself as a measure which carries a great deal of potential, creates wide opportunities for the customization of criminal-law response to crime, but also as a measure which may give rise to serious problems (both at the stage of adjudicating the punishment, but probably even more at the stage of its implementation), and certainly will require a great commitment on the part of the authorities who apply and carry out this punishment (also in terms of making the offender aware of its content).
Założeniem przyświecającym opracowaniu niniejszego artykułu było podkreślenie resocjalizacyjnej roli kary ograniczenia wolności, która poza karą grzywny stanowi najlżejszą formę kary i pozostawia jednostkę w jej dotychczasowym środowisku, pozwalając jej na względnie normalne w nim funkcjonowanie. Podstawowym zadaniem tej kary poza ograniczeniem wolności jednostki jest wdrożenie jej do wykonywania pracy społecznie użytecznej, a ta z kolei w znacznej mierze przyczynia się do osiągnięcia celów kary, którymi są wzbudzenie w skazanych woli kształtowania społecznie pożądanych postaw poprzez przestrzeganie norm narzuconych przez system społeczny, a przede wszystkim poprzez przestrzeganie porządku prawnego.
EN
The underlining arguement in this article is to highlight the positive effect of comunity service as a form of punishment for criminal activity, which other than a fine is considered the lightest form of penalty. This is because it does not take the criminal out of thier current environment, thus not creating a change in their lifestyle and actions. Aside from the basic restriction of forcing the individual to do these jobs which are considered useful to society, the purpose of this community service is also to teach the criminal about how to behave responsibly in society. By helping the community the individual is not only following the law but also learning to conform to the norms and actions which are desirable in a successful social system.
The subject matter of the article is the penal policy of courts of law implemented in 2005 and 2010, and in the years 2014–2015, presented based on court statistics. The principal objective of the discussion is to find the answer to the question of whether the penal code reform implementedby the Act of 20 February 2015, which became effective on 1 July 2015, brought about the expected changes in the jurisprudence. The preliminary results of the research demonstrated that the penal code reform did to an extent result in the expected changes in the penal policy, because, after its implementation, the extent to which the penalty of imprisonment with conditional suspension of its enforcement was imposed decreased, and the importance of the penalty of restriction of liberty increased. Also, the importance of the so-called mixed penalties increased. However, contrary to the expectations, the importance of unconditional imprisonment did not decrease and, instead, its share increased from 12.1% in 2014 to 14.4% in 2015.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.