Sentencing in Poland: Failed Attempts to Reduce Punitiveness

Poland, like all central and eastern European communist countries, had notoriously harsh sentencing practices and high imprisonment rates, in sharp contrast to western Europe. After 25 years of political, economic, and social reforms, sentencing in Poland remains very different from patterns in western Europe. It is unclear whether that results from particularities of the transformation after 1990 or from shadows of the communist past and mentality. After 1989 substantial efforts were made to reduce punitiveness. A major liberalization took place in the early 1990s under the old communist penal code, the product primarily of changes in sentencing practice, and not in the law. Trends reversed after a new 1998 code took effect. Legislation meant to liberalize sentencing practice instead produced increased use of imprisonment. This resulted mainly from the changing political and social atmosphere. Imprisonment increased while sentencing policies became milder. This seems to result not from especially frequent use of imprisonment or harsh sentences but from abuse of sentencing the main alternative, the suspended sentence. It is imposed often, but is often revoked, with recipients ending up behind bars.