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Description
The project addresses the need of developing a new penal policy that can underlie the new Penal Code expected in the upcoming years. The existing Penal Code has been in force since 1968 having a number of characteristics of the Socialist period. The Code has been repeatedly amended since the changes in 1990 without any clear vision of the goals and meaning of the penal policy. The amendments have been made in a piecemeal, reactive and political manner. The latter manner has led to two negative results.
First, the Penal Code is eclectic and piled with texts. Second, it has been developed in an unacceptable repressive manner as if the rights and the Code exist in different worlds. The second outcome is the issue addressed by the project. Repression has grown by imposing more severe punishments (the single penalty, the years served in prison) and by obstinately keeping absurd elements of a crime from an age gone (e.g. Article 329: “income acquired in an amoral manner").
The project is focused on the risks from growing repressive manner of the criminal justice system. Given the established inertia, most probably the trends towards “more severe penalties” will be kept in the future Penal Code. The excessively active Chief Prosecutor’s Office offering in any possible manner more severe criminal penalties has also been a factor. The 2020 pandemic escalated the willingness of the executive power to insist on “greater punishment” and precluded the citizens from resisting it.
The main project goal is to influence the development of a new criminal justice policy, followed by a new Penal Code, by holding a campaign for a modern, enlightened attitude to punishments. The policy the project advocates for points out the risks of excessive repression in the criminal justice system.
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Summary of project results
The main goal of the project was to aid a decisive reform of security policies and upgrade the relevant institutions towards a modern type of risk assessment and preventive action.
The initiative was designed to build up to a more enlightened, rational, and effective work with risk factors, which in turn will reduce reactive and repressive policies, establish a preventive and soft approach in their place, i.e lead to humanization and socialization of security policies. The project was achieving its goals with different type of activities – monitoring of the current national security policies, developing and advocating for the establishment of a contemporary matrix for analysis, assessment and work with security risks, developing a wholesome modern concept for security, discussions and training modules.
The project sustainability is guaranteed by the essence of the activities themselves. The matrix of risk assessment as well as the National Security Strategy developed a completely new and modern conceptualization of the notion of risk and the ways of its management. This contemporary perception of risk and risk factors could be successfully used in the future security reforms in Bulgaria.
The training module gives the opportunity for creating new courses dealing with the risk issues, which could be incorporated in the educational program of New Bulgarian University. The reader, uploaded on the NBU website, as well as the project website (www.securityrisks.eu) are a sustainable source of information regarding the project topics.