NCJ Number
73962
Journal
Revue de science criminelle et de droit penal compare Issue: 1 Dated: (January - March 1980) Pages: 101-113
Date Published
1980
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Revisions since 1971 of the 1962 Hungarian penal code signal emphasis on security measures, a search for alternatives to imprisonment, individualization of penalties, and efforts at decriminalization and limitation of modern criminal law.
Abstract
The reform has been based on socialist principles but also on a pragmatic approach to crime control. It has restored the distinction between severe and minor offenses, revived the penalty of life imprisonment, and revoked the death penalty for offenses against socialist property. The new code is essentially a synthesis of changes and developments in social and economic relationships between 1962 and 1971. As in the old code, inebriation is not considered grounds for reduction of criminal responsibility. Imprisonment is still the backbone of the corrections system, with the death sentence, fines, and loss of various rights serving as other punishments. The minimum prison term has been raised from 30 days to 3 months; the maximum sentence is 15 years, or 20 years for concurrent sentences. Life imprisonment is considered an alternative to the death penalty. The rules governing conditional release have been made more varied and more severe; a day-rate system of fines has been adopted; six additional penalties such as exclusion from public affairs are provided. The penalty imposed is to depend on the social danger of the offense, the degree of the offender's culpability, and aggravating or attenuating circumstances. Security measures include forced medical treatment for violent or dangerous offenders and alcoholics and preventive custody for hardcore recidivists. Other new measures are a probation system without fixed penalties and a revised supervision system for parolees. Minor fraud and theft have been reduced to misdemeanors, and many business offenses have been entirely decriminalized. The code contains new laws against terrorist activities, environmental protection laws, and a separate section defining military offenses. Offenses against the state and against human life precede all other offenses. Notes are supplied.