NCJ Number
82397
Date Published
1981
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Contemporary West German criminal policy focuses on preventive measures taken before intervention through criminal law becomes necessary.
Abstract
Family, education, and employment issues stand at the forefront of such a policy. Because the laws themselves should serve to forestall criminality, many actions formerly sanctioned by law have been decriminalized - deviant sexual behaviors among consenting adults, adultery, pornography, and some offenses against the public order. Law reform has also sought to protect citizens' rights to demonstrate and obtain divorce. Penalties have been lightened for cases where mitigating circumstances are evidenced or the offender exhibits a willingness to cooperate with the authorities. Indeed, since World War II, the West German criminal codes have been changed 51 times in the effort to deal more effectively with threats to citizen safety from terrorism, juvenile coercion into prostitution, new forms of economic crime, and environmental pollution. Short-term prison sentences (less than 1 year) have been eliminated and transformed into a schedule of fines. In general, sentencing seeks to match the treatment to the offense: drug offenders undergo detoxification and treatment for addiction; other minor or medium-seriousness offenders receive resocialization programs. Juvenile probation represents another reform aimed to bring young offenders back into a positive relationship with society. These efforts remain conflict-bound (offender resocialization v. protection of society), but the policy commitment to less repressive control will continue.