O systému trestů

The article treats the evolution of the system of criminal punishment in the Czech Republic and selected European countries, the main focus being on the issue of alternative sentencing. The first part of the text brings forward the need of a balanced application of the two antithetical criminal policies that currently influence the penal system. On the one hand there is an effort to limit the unconditional prison sentence and to introduce various forms of alternatives to imprisonment; on the other hand, however, there is a call for more severe criminal sanctions. The second part of the text analyses the origins of the approach that has lead to the introduction of alternative sentencing in Europe and describes the main trends in that criminal policy in the first half of the 20th century and its new dimensions since the 1980s. The analysis implies that the effort focused on the restriction of unconditional imprisonment has had a central position within the criminal policies of European countries, a trend that is to be further developed. The claims on a more intense penal repression should be considered only in terms of a s mail group of the most serious crimes. The third part of the text deals with the penal systems of Germany, France and Finland and their practical application. The best approved type of sentence in these countries is the pecuniary punishment followed by the suspended sentence and, to some extent, the community service. The fourth part analyses the development of alternative criminal sanctions in former Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1989 concluding that the dominant type of sanction with a historical tradition was the suspended prison sentence. The legal provisions, however, were rather unsubstantial and not detailed enough. The pecuniary punishment was applied only rarely in that period, a fact that only corresponded with a primitive legal regulation of that type of sanction. The fifth part contains an overview of legal reforms in the Czech criminal law that have taken place since 1989 in order to achieve a penal system that would live up to European standards. The contemporary judicial practice, analysed in the final part of the text, has achieved a considerable drop in the number of unconditional prison sentences, although the structure of alternative criminal sanctions is still not satisfactory. The recommendation is to both improve the legal regulation of the existing alternative sanctions and to amend the penal system with new forms of sanctions that would reduce the detention character of imprisonment.