Day fines, as a pecuniary sanction, have a great potential to reduce inequality in the criminal sentencing system, as they impose the same relative punishment on all offenders irrespective of their income. Furthermore, with correct implementation, they can constitute an alternative sanction to the more repressive and not always efficient short-term prison sentences. Finally, by independently expressing in the sentence the severity and the income of the offender, day fines can increase uniformity and transparency of sentencing. Having this in mind, almost half of the European Union countries have adopted day fines in their criminal justice system. For the first time, this book makes their findings accessible to a wider international audience. Aimed at scholars, policy makers and criminal law practitioners, it provides an opportunity to learn about the theoretical advantages, the practical challenges, the successes and failures, and ways to improve.

Day fines, as a pecuniary sanction, have a great potential to reduce inequality in the criminal sentencing system, as they impose the same relative punishment on all offenders irrespective of their income. Furthermore, with correct implementation, they can constitute an alternative sanction to the more repressive and not always efficient short-term prison sentences. Finally, by independently expressing in the sentence the severity and the income of the offender, day fines can increase uniformity and transparency of sentencing. Having this in mind, almost half of the European Union countries have adopted day fines in their criminal justice system. For the first time, this book makes their findings accessible to a wider international audience. Aimed at scholars, policy makers and criminal law practitioners, it provides an opportunity to learn about the theoretical advantages, the practical challenges, the successes and failures, and ways to improve.

This publication examines the rules in force in Europe governing prisons and the treatment of prisoners, including the use of force, the selection of prison staff and the protection of prisoners' human rights, based on Recommendation Rec (2006) 2 on the European Prison Rules (which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in January 2006). It contains the text of the recommendation with a detailed commentary on it, together with a report which considers recent developments and analyses the effectiveness of these rules and of imprisonment as a form of punishment.

Money is the most frequently means used in the legal system to punish and regulate. Monetary penalties outnumber all other sanctions delivered by criminal justice in many jurisdictions, imprisonment included. More people pay fines than go to prison and in some jurisdictions many of those in prison are there because of failure to pay their fines. Therefore, it is surprising how little has been written in the Anglophone academic world about the nature of money sanctions and their specific characteristics as legal sanctions. In many ways, legal innovations related to money sanctions have been poorly understood. This book argues that they are a direct consequence of the changing meaning of money. Considering the ‘meaninglessness’ of modern money, the book aims to examine the history of changing conceptions in how fines have been conceived and used. Using a set of interpretative techniques sensitive to how money and freedom are perceived, the genealogy of the penal fine is presented as a story of constant reformulation in response to shifting political pressures and changes in intellectual developments that influenced ideological commitments of legislators and practitioners. This book is multi-disciplinary and will appeal to those engaged with criminology, sociology and philosophy of punishment, socio-legal studies, and criminal law.

"One of the central features of modern German criminology in revealing the 'true nature of crime' follows the tradition of enlightment" instead of accommodating the approach of the criminal justice system. This contention is made by the editors of Developments in Crime and Crime Control Research, Drs. Sessar and Kerner, as they continue to bridge the traditional gap between Anglo-American scholars in criminology and their German counterparts. The language barrier has long been another contributing circumstance to the division of philosophy among countries, but recently, substantial attempts are being undertaken to examine more closely the differences among specific criminological schools of thinking. Drs. Sessar and Kerner point out that, although crime has its universality, a clear understanding of the various approaches to the problem of crime will prove of benefit to those in the field in all countries.

Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.