[Alternative imporisonment measures in the penal legislation of the Socialist Republic of Poland].

On April 19th, 1969 the People's Poland Parliament adopted a new penal legislation consisting of a Penal Code, a Code of Criminal Procedure and an executory Penal Code, which all came into force January 1st, 1970. The distinctive peculiarity of the above mentioned Codes, as the Authors have pointed out, is that they conform to the recent political, social and economic democratization of Poland and to the structure and dynamics of delinquency in this country. In examining the measures concerning educational rehabilitation provided for by the penal law in question, the Authors have started discussing questions like restriction on personal freedom, conditional suspension of criminal procedings, supervision of the convict who has been given the benefice of conditional suspension of the execution of sentence or of conditional release and supervision of the recidivist as well as points related to warranty and postjail care. Though these measures show some similarity to those provided for by bourgeois penal legislations, they result from a quite anthithetic ideology according to which punishment has to perform a double function of defence of working-class achievements as well as of an effective rehabilitation of the convict. A detailed analysis of the theoretical premises and of the actual carrying out of these measures shows, the Authors say, that though they represent only a further stage in the development of socio-juridical progress, they are put in conformity with the criminal policy's trends and the politico-ideological contents of a socialist government. They testify therefore an actual effort to make social rehabilitation of the convict possible in that they prevent the exertion of all negative psycho-pathogenic influences of jail environment on the convict, especially in case of slight crimes. The ultimate importance of these measures is that they can be considered an articulate attempt to promote actual social rehabilitation of the convict and therefore they are a real contribution in the resolution of delinquency which is viewed in Poland, where a process of socio-political trnasformation has been recently taking place, as part of the heritage from the past bourgeois government.