Some thoughts on new social defense and reflexive modernity

Abstract

This paper studies the reception of the Social Defense movement in Spain, both at a theoretical and a legal level. Relevance here has been limited and marked by criticisms of imprecission and not enough garantism. On the other hand, some of its ideas are still relevant, as the criticism to a Law that is disconnected from reality, the opposition to punishment for the sake of it, and its humanitarian spirit. Social Defense, at the same time, can play an important role nowadays, when our societies experiment deep and quick changes −characteristic of which is, according to many, an expansion of criminal Laws. Because it re-introduces the criminal as an individual, Social Defense favors the treatment of offenders, which can be seen as a limitation to punitivism; because it insists in individual dangerousness and the identification of dangerous offenders, it can favor the expansive effect of penal intervention.