Recidivism in the Polish criminal law – evolution of the regulation from 1932, 1969 and 1997 in the Polish penal codes

Abstract

The article deals with recidivism, i.e. committing an offence again. It was introduced from a historical perspective – the evolution of the concept of recidivism in the Polish penal codes from 1932, 1969 and from 1997, being in force at present, and from comparative perspective – comparing the regulation of recidivism in these acts. This notion is functioning this way in popular, as well as specialist circulation. In the presented article we concentrated on legal-criminal notion of recidivism, i.e. the problem of crime return, requiring an appropriate reaction to the kind of threats it is carrying on the part of the criminal law. At first we focused on different definitions of recidivism in the contemporary criminal law. Then we checked the definition of recidivism – analyzing recidivism in mentioned acts of penalties. In conclusion, they pointed at resemblances which in this respect are appearing between the Penal Codeʾ 32 and Penal Codeʾ 69, reflecting the coercive approach of the legislator towards the occurrence of return crime, concentrating especially on the protection of the society against the multirecidivism and multirecidivists. A manifestation of this was a possibility of administering means of isolation and extraordinary means of repressive punishment towards them. Penal Codeʾ 97 is standing out with the liberal approach, however, leaving many doubts concerning the intention of the legislator, undecided whether to treat repeated crime with the entire harshness of the law, or to try to influence it with some probation means. These observations were elaborated in final conclusions.