Între a preveni şi a pedepsi: un nou tip de acţiune penală în România interbelică

Abstract

This article deals with the emergence of a new type of crime prevention in interwar Romania. Inspired by the Italian school of criminal law and by the Italian Criminal Code ”Rocco” (1930), the Romanian Criminal Code ”King Carol II” (1936) formulates a new type of criminal sanctions, explicitly designed to address and combat the social dangerousness. Regarded as a major challenge to the classic criminal system based on free will and guilt, the ”security measures” were formalizing new types of offenders defined as such not by their criminal acts but by their criminal potential, redefining the scope and the goal of the criminal prevention. Major debates in the epoch reveal the possible threats this new type of criminal sanctions and of a criminal policy orientated towards risk prevention, seen as closely connected with authoritarian tendencies, carried for individual freedom and the rule of law. The legal issues discussed in the epoch prove significant for the current debates regarding the negative consequences the preventive War on Terror have for individual freedom and the rule of law.