Substitute penalties for unpaid fines in Poland. Example of counterproductivity of criminal law solutions.

• In Event: Prosecutorial Decision-making and the Prosecutorial Process, Alternatives to trial Panel

Abstract

Poland is a country with one of the highest incarceration rates in Europe. In Poland, 200 out of 100,000 people are deprived of their liberty, while the incarceration rate in EU is 108. The amendment to the Polish Penal Code in 2015 was intended to result in less frequent imposition of prison sentences in favor of non-custodial penalties, such as fines and restriction of liberty. However, the facilitation of imposing fines by eliminating the provision which obliged judges to assess the economic situation of the convicted has led to more frequent imposition of inexecutable fines. In Poland, in place of an unenforced fine, substitute penalties are imposed – community service or substitute penalty of imprisonment. Currently, 10% of inmates in Poland are serving substitute imprisonment, and this percentage continues to grow (in 2013, it was 3%). I will present the results of a court case files research I conducted in 2024 at the Polish Institute of Justice. I analyzed 257 cases in which unexecuted fines were converted into substitute penalties. The results shows that judges more often and without reasonable justification apply substitute imprisonment (60%), without applying community service first. This is contrary to the intention of the amendment to the Penal Code, according to which imprisonment was meant to be subsidiary. At the same time, 70% of the cases end with the avoidance of the substitute penalty through the payment of the fine. Convicts who are employed, cohabiting with another person, and have someone dependent on them more often avoid the execution of the substitute penalty. The results of the research indicate that the 2015 amendment was not an effective way to reduce the prison population and, at the same time, increased the likelihood of more frequent imprisonment of people in less favorable socio-economic situations.

Author

• Maria Kopeć, University of Warsaw