Cursos / 1º Ciclo / Faculty of Law :: Criminology

POLITICA CRIMINAL - 2017/2018

3º curricular year
Semestralidade: 1st semester
ECTS: 6

Teachers

Leading Teacher: Prof. Doutor Cândido da Agra
Assistant Professor: Prof. Doutor Cândido da Agra

Class type and School hours

Teaching Language

Portuguese

Main Aims/Objectives

1. To know the systems and the models of criminal politics from the Classical Age to the history of the present time passing through the juridical positivism and the scientific-criminological positivism.
2.To Understand the place and roles of criminal policy towards internal and external threats against the Portuguese society and State;
3. To Know the instruments of social control and security action mobilized by the State and other institutions.

Specific Aims/Objectives

1. To identify and characterize the moments of criminal policy intervention and discuss the solutions of each moment;
2. To Know the objectives, priorities and guidelines of the current criminal policy;
3. Critically discuss current solutions and, if necessary, propose alternative solutions in the current normative framework and, possibly, outside it.

Skills to be acquired

To be able to follow the state of the art related to the models discussed in the criminological community, namely alternative solutions to fighting crime, through different types of prevention and in relation to the execution of sentences.
Identify new segments of crime: volume and trends from a comparative perspective.
Examine existing political-criminal solutions.
To point out solutions to combat crime (in the prevention, repression and execution of penalties).

Teaching Procedures

Theoretical expositive sessions, aimed at orienting students towards conceptual and theoretical exploration of the subjects of the program.
Practical sessions to foster the critical spirit, guided by discussion and debate, with the use of case handling.
Guidance tutorial for presentation of papers by students.
Fieldwork developed by students.

Programme

1. Criminal Policy and Criminal Sciences
a) What is science and how it is done: questions of epistemology
b) The hypothetical-deductive method and empirical methods. The complexity of criminal science methods. Michel Foucault´s position on the history of knowledge, science and power; the genealogical, archaeological and hermeneutical method.
c) The culture of social control: the perspective of D. Garland.
d) The global science of criminal law (Gesamtestrafrech Wissenschaft).
e) The course of the Criminal Policy from Von Liszt, Adolphe Prins, to the present.
f) The constitution of the rationality of social defense (late nineteenth and early twentieth century).
g) Special references to Beccaria, the classical school and the current neoclassical tendencies.


2. The major systems and models of Criminal Policy. A Comparative View. Tendencies.
a) The deterministic inheritance of Von Liszt, Adolphe Prins.
b) Rationality of criminal policy and personal orientation.
c) The New Social Defense: Marc Ancel.
d) The Movements of Law and Order.
e) The theoretical critique of the rationalities of social defense (old and new), especially through critical criminology, new criminology and radical criminology.
(f) for a European criminal policy.
g) Martinson, the "nothing works" formula and the new perspectives from the 1980s.

3. Modalities of Criminal Policy
3.1. The Preventive Criminal Policy
a) The need for a pre-delinquent criminal policy
b) The criminal threat and the absence of punishable offense
c) The role of the FSS (security forces and services) and the current problems posed by objective security and the feeling of insecurity in the populations. Criminological studies on these themes.

3.2. The repressive criminal policy
a) Criminal offenses
b) Configuration of criminal types and criminal intervention
c) The penalties, of their legitimacy and necessity
d) The execution of penalties
e) Procedural measures
f) Divertion solutions

4 The Criminal Policy in Portugal
a) The Framework Law on Criminal Policy (remission)
b) The Criminal Policy Guidelines
c) The objectives of the Criminal Policy
d) The priorities of the Criminal Policy
e) Special measures

5. Major challenges in criminal policy today:
a) Criminal policies and fundamental rights.

6) Scientific evaluation of criminal policies and intervention practices; special reference to experimental criminology studies.

Evaluation Type

The classification assumes 70% of attendance and will result from the following mandatory elements:
- Two interim tests;
- A field work

Teaching Resources

Monographs, journal articles, statistical element, online information (official website).

Sustainability Objectives

Keywords

Criminal policy
Prevention
Repression
Victim
Penalty

Main Bibliography

Complementary Bibliography