Punishment and Penal Policy in Slovenia: Conceptual Shifts and Practical Consequences

Abstract

This article discusses the question of punishment on two levels: the conceptual and the practical. In the first part, we outline the developments in Slovenian penological theory over the past few decades and address important changes in the perception of punishment and its justification. We also briefly discuss planned changes in penal policy that reflect the changes in the punitive paradigms, and the results of such changes. In the second part, we address more specific questions on the issue of punishment. Firstly, we focus on prison from a systemic point of view, from the perspective of convicted persons, and the perspective of prison staff. Second, we consider newer, alternative forms of punishment and their role in modern Slovenian punishment discourse. We analyse these questions through a comparative prism and thus put domestic Slovenian ideas and systems into a wider geographical and historical space.