Search

Resettlement is a constitutional aim of prison sentences and it seems relevant to know how this aim is achieved and explore improvement measures. The paper describes the Spanish system of resettlement in which we find two situations: prisoners early-released that received meaningful supervision and support and prisoners that serve the full sentence, that lack any kind of supervision and receive limited support. The causes of the problem are found in short-term sentences, that lack any kind of a sentence plan, and in those medium and long-term prisoners that due to different reasons are excluded from early release. Regarding the second issue the paper explores different experiences in European comparative penology and shows how semiautomatic system of early release is a good practice in order to advance towards universality in resettlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the reform of 2015 Penal Code, the conditional release may become Freedom happens to be considered as a modality of suspension of the rest of the sentence execution. Nevertheless, it keeps, to a certain extent, a large part of the indispensable requirements for its concession; It is to say, being in third grade, carrying out the 3/4 of the sentence and showing a good behaviour in prison. It is on this last point that where present research is going to focus, developing the guidelines that have been followed throughout history in order to detail the precise characteristics explaining the essence of this behavioral requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay we address criteria to evaluate how dangerous inmates are and the risks within the penitentiary environment. We'll focus in two subjects: One being the modification or transformation of how to decide to grant temporary release and probation that involves the use of actuarial methods for assessing the danger or risk of the convicted; The second is increasing the use of static criteria for the risk or danger assessment that makes more difficult to grant those benefits to those who are considered dangerous or committed a felony. This situation cancels the opportunity of those individuals to prove their capability to return to live within the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the modifications of the Spanish Criminal Code incorporated by the LO 1/2015 there are several that stand out especially. One of them, embodied by the new wording of Articles 80 to 94 bis, is the establishment of a new system of alternative forms of enforcement of custodial sentences through, above all, a formally and procedurally unified regulation of the different types of suspended sentences and non-custodial alternative penalties, through the formal consideration of expulsion (not only of foreigners who are staying illegally in Spain) as the only form of “substitute penalty to prison", and through the transformation of the conditional release, which is no longer the last period of imprisonment in the progressive system and becomes the conditional suspension of the execution of the last period of the custodial sentence. This paper analyzes the real scope of these changes from a systemic perspective, a scope that in some cases has been missrepresented by the government and the legislature in their justification of the reform as a unification around the concept of suspended sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]