In the Name of Prevention? Policing ‘Social Dangerousness’ Through Arrest in China

Over the past half-century, the nexus between risk and prevention has increasingly become a constant preoccupation among many criminal justice regimes around the globe. In China, while the significant rise in crime following the marketization has been envisaged as an important source of risk, a criminal law concept of ‘social dangerousness’ has gained increasing prominence in the country’s crime control, policing and punishment systems. This article aims to shed light on how social dangerousness has been juxtaposed with and informed China’s preventative state through critical inquiry into the police power of arrest. I argue that the recent legal consolidation of social dangerousness as a prerequisite to arrest has enabled this coercive measure to become more preventive in purpose. By creating an ever-expanding purview of arrest, the police become more capable of capturing the largest possible cohort of suspects deemed ‘socially dangerous’. This is exacerbated by the legal opacity and ambiguity of social dangerousness, which allows manipulation and liberal application by police in diverse scenarios. My analysis suggests that the preventive dimension of arrest manifests itself largely as a punitive power, which runs the risk of turning arrest into a ‘punitive-preventive measure’. This will, inevitably, impose the same amount of intrusiveness and harsh treatment on suspects regardless of their risk levels. It is more concerning that the fusion of preventiveness and punitiveness has managed to circumvent close scrutiny of the justification for the preventive end of arrest by failing to see the need for periodic review.

DIFFERENTIATION OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

The aim: Determining the need to differentiate the criminal liability of medical workers for damage caused in the course of professional activity. Materials and methods: This following research is based on an analysis of laws (21 laws), court judgments and case files (108 judgments and 8 case files), judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (4) and the legal doctrine of criminal law. Comparative, systematic, analytic, and empiric methods have been used in this research. During the preparation of this article the results of personal experience of the scientific work (17 years), the experience of advocacy (11 years), and the experience of the Supreme Court's judge have been applied. Results: The analysis of case files, thoughts of scientists and lawyers-practitioners allowed to propose criteria and indicators influencing increasing or decreasing of social dangerousness of actions committed by medical professionals. It is noted that the necessity of the legislator to consider the close interrelation of professional medical services and influence on the health of persons who demand medical services or need health care during differentiation of criminal liability. Conclusions: The necessity of differentiating approach to the criminal liability of medical professionals who inflict health damages or death is stated in comparison with the liability of general subjects of a crime.

Policía y gitanos españoles en la encrucijada democrática: una aproximación desde la documentación del Archivo General del Ministerio del Interior

La consolidación del concepto positivista de “peligrosidad social” sustanciaría lo que determinados juristas denominan como “fraude de las etiquetas” en el circuito penal español en el siglo XX. Este proceso afectó singularmente a la población gitana debido al éxito de la explicación étnica de algunos tipos de criminalidad. Este trabajo, a partir de la exploración de los fondos documentales sobre la “cuestión gitana” custodiados en el Archivo General del Ministerio del Interior, tiene un doble objetivo: (1) el primero y más general, contribuir a generar conocimiento sobre la problematización pública de la “cuestión gitana” en España, tomando como referencia el circuito disciplinario que, llamativamente pese a la importante presencia del colectivo, no ha recibido la suficiente atención por parte de la historiografía española; (2) el segundo y más concreto, analizar su tratamiento policial tanto en las diligencias como en la documentación interna producida por las fuerzas y cuerpos de seguridad del Estado durante la primera andadura democrática. The success of the positivist legal concept of "social dangerousness" would entail practices of what certain jurists called "fraudulent labeling" within the Spanish criminal circuit in the twentieth century. This process had particular negative effects on the Spanish Romani people due to an ethnic explanation of some types of crimes. The purpose of this work, through exploring the files on the “Gypsy question” available at the General Archive of the Ministry of Interior, is twofold: (1) firstly and most general, to produce knowledge about the public discussion of the “gypsy question” in Spain, taking as a reference the disciplinary circuit that, strikingly enough, has been overlook by Spanish historians despite the significant presence of this minority group; (2) secondly and more concrete, to analyze police views and approaches in inner proceedings as well as in public records produced by the State security forces in the path to democracy.

Immigration Detention as Social Defence: Policing ‘Dangerous Mobility’ in Italy

Drawing on an empirical study, this article explores the role of immigration detention in Italy by analysing the way a specific rhetoric of ‘dangerousness’ has developed and is being used within the framework of immigration enforcement policies. Our argument is that immigration detention has been transformed into an instrument of crime prevention and ‘social defence’, and that this transformation is fuelled by the central position that the legal categories of ‘risk’ and ‘danger’ have assumed in the regulation of the return procedure. The article contends that immigration law enforcement agencies can make use of immigration detention as a flexible control tool to manage what are perceived as the most problematic populations in urban areas, thus practising a policy of selective enforcement that while not explicitly built along racial and ethnic lines, clearly discriminates among migrants according to their ‘social marginality’ or supposed ‘social dangerousness’.

Insanity and Social Dangerousness: Philosophical Reflections on Italian Law

According to Italian law 81/2014, social dangerousness derived only from individual personal characteristics, including mental health conditions. As a result, dangerousness is not perceived as related to a specific context, but on the contrary mainly caused by a psychic condition. Although forensic psychiatry and criminology have denied this axiom for a long time now, this ancient and traditional prejudice where a mentally ill person is dangerous as such, seems to have returned formally. Beyond the contingent issues that may have influenced Italian lawmakers in formulating this legislation, there is a question to ask: why does this union between mental illness/social dangerousness reappears in a cyclic and persistent way? Since imputability and social dangerousness are not topics studied exclusively by law and psychiatry, it is possible to express some philosophical considerations regarding the correlation between insanity and deviance and the ancient bond between insanity and evil. In assessing psychiatric social dangerousness, in order to reconcile instances of the rights of individual patients with the need to protect society, the law needs to take into account these hidden and intertwined issues.

Wpływ osobowości sprawcy na ocenę podstaw i zakresu odpowiedzialności karnej

The wrong-doer’s personality influence on the assessment of criminal liability grounds and scopeA criminal act is done in certain circumstances, but it refl ects also the wrong-doer’s personality and his/her social dangerousness. The Criminal Code of 1997 replaced the term “social dangerousness” with “social harmfulness”. Art. 115 § 2 CC points out the circumstances that should be considered while assessing the level of social harmfulness; with no personality-like circumstance mentioned there. Such factor is indirectly hidden in the phenomena of motivation. While one considers acts that are done mostly because of some external situation-related factors, the wrong-doer’s personality does not matter. One’s personality should be considered as far as involuntary acts are concerned. The wrong-doer’s personality is interesting for criminal law purposes, because of some terms the Polish CC uses, like personal characteristics Art. 10 § 2, 10 § 4, Art. 21 § 1 i § 2, Art. 58 § 2a, Art. 66 § 1, Art. 69 § 2, Art. 77 § 1, Art. 53 § 2 and motivation Art. 40 § 2, Art. 53 § 2, Art. 115 § 2, Art. 148 § 2 point 3. The term “personal characteristics” is wider than “personality”. There are many psychological theories that try to explain what personality is Freud’s, factors, cognitive, social learning, humanistic and systematic theory. Personality is a fairly well-fixed regulation system that starts to function about the age of 21. It consists of many elements. Personality can change drastically during lifetime under certain traumatic circumstances, organic brain changes or addictions to psychoactive substances. The act of a wrongdoer may express his/her typical characteristics personality but it may not be so typical for him/ her, either. Usually, when it is typical the court treats it as an aggravating circumstance and when untypical — as a mitigating one. Personality issues need some specialist knowledge. Personal characteristics are important as far as criminal liability is concerned. Otherwise, their presence should be limited in the Criminal Code and used only in Art. 10 § 2 and Art. 53. They should be considered as far as the period of punishment execution and probation measures are concerned.

The relationship of individual psychological and individual-typological characteristics in individuals with personality disorders, committed socially dangerous acts

The relationship between individual psychological and individually-typological characteristics of patients with personality disorders who committed socially dangerous acts were studied, taking into account the severity of the organic factor and the degree of their social dangerousness. 121 males were surveyed, 70 of them were diagnosed with "organic personality disorder" and 33 - personality disorder. The types of personality disorders were diagnosed. The individual variables, the ratio of processes of system activation of behavior and its inhibition, protective styles, especially coping behaviours that constitute aggression, styles of self-regulation were analyzed. It was revealed that low settings of the system activation behavior found in the group of persons with a high degree of social dangerousness, determines the formation of individual psychological treats related to the rigidity behavior, the instability of the motives, impulsivity, negative emotionality, disinhibition. During comparison of samples of individuals with medium and high degree of social dangerousness it has been discovered that self-centeredness, as a component of self-control, high levels of affective components of aggression – anger and immature defense mechanisms significantly distinguish individuals with a high degree of public danger.

Verso il superamento dell’Ospedale Psichiatrico Giudiziario: l’umanizzazione del trattamento degli infermi di mente socialmente pericolosi

L’accertamento della pericolosità sociale dei soggetti affetti da vizio di mente, totale o parziale, che hanno commesso un reato, costituisce il punto di incontro di due scienze che hanno finalità e modalità operative completamente differenti: il diritto e la psichiatria. Da circa qualche decennio, la psichiatria ha offerto una lettura completamente differente della malattia mentale, rompendo il rigido binomio presuntivo di infermo di mente-socialmente pericoloso e vincendo importanti battaglie nel trattamento di questi soggetti. Ciò nonostante le misure di sicurezza destinante ai soggetti infermi di mente ritenuti socialmente pericolosi in seguito alla commissione di un reato, tra le quali, in particolare, l’Ospedale Psichiatrico Giudiziario, hanno completamente disatteso ogni nuovo modo di concepire il trattamento della malattia mentale da parte della psichiatria, caratterizzandosi, invece, per il solo carattere custodialistico. La legge n. 81 del 2014 prova a correggere il tiro rendendo il trattamento dei soggetti infermi di mente più umano. ---------- The social dangerousness verification of subjects with mental illness and author of a crime is the point of intersection between two sciences characterized by different aims and different operative moods: law and psychiatry. In the last years, psychiatry has offered a new vision of mental illness, surmounting the rigid presumptive binomial concerning mentally ill-social dangerousness, and making important achievements about the treatment of this subjects. However, the security measures for mentally ills considered socially dangerousness after the commission of a crime, especially judicial psychiatric hospital, have not considered the new way of addressing the treatment of mental illness from psychiatry, keeping custody character. The law no. 81 of 2014 tries to resolve this problem, humanizing the treatment of mentally ills.