Imprisonment in Romania. Perception and facts (Part IV - Final Part)

• In Event: The young adults and juveniles in the Romanian justice system – perceptions, profile and conduct during the trial

Abstract

The perception of the duration and nature of penalties that should be provided by law and applied by the courts depends on a variety of factors. This presentation is the fourth (and final) part of a five years study, started in 2020, aiming to evaluate how the criminal code that has had entered into force in 2014 fulfils its goals in the eyes of young adults studying law. Our goal is to assess if the courts of law and the society are on the same page. We have a total of nine surveys which take part in the evaluation. We continue to assess how well the alternative solutions have been implemented by the courts and if they reflect the perception of young people. In the previous years, the circumstances have put us in the situation to evaluate if the restrictions imposed by the pandemic affected the perception of deprivation of liberty. Also, we analysed the post-pandemic era to see if it affected the perception of our students over some of the most frequent crimes and the sentencing practices of the courts. In this final part of the study, we are drawing all the conclusions from the five years' worth of gathering the perception of the students, taking into consideration also the current legislative trend from Romania of increasing the penalties for some crimes.

Authors

• Lavinia Valeria Lefterache, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

• George-Alexandru Lazăr, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest

• Dorel Herinean, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest