Legislation Introducing Crimes with Imprisonment Sanction in 2005–2015 Poland – Legislative Inflation and its Impact on Sentencing

Abstract Paper examines phenomena of “legislative inflation” and “overcriminalization” – the increasing number of statutory legislation introducing imprisonment sanction – in contemporary Poland. The research involved three steps. First involved “mapping” of the legal provisions establishing crimes with imprisonment sanctions in pieces of statutory legislation (“laws”) other than “Penal Codes” (so called “extra-code crimes”). To this end computer assisted approach was employed to the “stock of law” (all “laws” in force at a given time) as of 1 January 2005 (N=784) and 1 January 2015 (N=1139). Provisions introducing crimes with imprisonment sanction were identified in 90 (2005) and 111 (2015) laws. Of them, 19 brand-new laws establishing “new crimes” with imprisonment sanction were legislated during 2005–2014 period. Second examined the policy formulation and law-making processes behind the identified legislative changes. Third stage adopted “law in action” perspective, examining whether crimes established in over one hundred identified laws affected the prison population.