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Europe in Prisons pp 255–289Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

European Prison Policy and Spanish Prison Practices: Understanding Confluences and Gaps

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

Democratic Spain can be studied as an example of adaptation of its legislation and penal practices to European prison policies. Since the Spanish transition to democracy started after the death of Franco (1975), Spain has transformed radically its legislation and practices related to imprisonment. Among the main aspects of this transformation are the introduction of a system of alternatives to imprisonment (which has significantly reduced the number of admissions to prison), the high standard of prisoners’ rights and quality of life in Spanish institutions and the opportunities given to prisoners for rehabilitation and resettlement. This chapter explores to what extent these changes can be related to the reports of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). However, in some other aspects Spanish penal practices are less adapted to European policies: the increase in the length of imprisonment and the lack of a universal system of early release are features that seem in contradiction with the recommendations of the Council of Europe. Explanations for these gaps are explored.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Van Zyl Smit and Snacken (2009) distinguish between European prison law (basically the judgments of the ECtHR ) and the other sources that are not legally binding. Given the interactions between these two sources with respect to the influence they may have at a national level, we prefer to use the label ‘EPP’ in a broader meaning.

  2. 2.

    In Spain, there are two administrations in charge of the prison system: the Catalan administration (which deals with prisons in Catalonia) and the General Administration of the State (which deals with prisons in the rest of Spain). Throughout this chapter, we use data referring to the whole prison system (Spain ) and data referring only to one part of the territory: the Catalan prisons (Catalonia) and the prisons of the rest of Spain (General Administration of the State).

  3. 3.

    Resolution (65)1 of the Committee of Ministers on suspended sentence, probation and other alternatives to imprisonment , Foreword.

  4. 4.

    Resolution (65)1 of the Committee of Ministers on suspended sentence, probation and other alternatives to imprisonment , Foreword.

  5. 5.

    Rec(99)22 of the Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation, art. 1.

  6. 6.

    Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules, Foreword.

  7. 7.

    Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules, Foreword.

  8. 8.

    Rec(99)22 of the Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation, art. 8.

  9. 9.

    Rec(2003)22 of the Committee of Ministers on conditional release (parole), Foreword.

  10. 10.

    Rec(2003)22 of the Committee of Ministers on conditional release (parole), Foreword.

  11. 11.

    Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules , Foreword; Rec(92)16 of the Committee of Ministers on the European rules on community sanctions and measures, art. 6.

  12. 12.

    Resolution (65)1 of the Committee of Ministers on suspended sentence, probation and other alternatives to imprisonment, art. 1; Rec(2010)1 of the Committee of Ministers on the Council of Europe probation rules, art. 54.

  13. 13.

    Rec(2000)22 of the Committee of Ministers on improving the implementation of the European rules on community sanctions and measures, art. 22; Rec(2010)1 of the Committee of Ministers on the Council of Europe probation rules, art. 1.

  14. 14.

    Rec(2000)22 of the Committee of Ministers on improving the implementation of the European rules on community sanctions and measures, art. 22; Rec(2010)1of the Committee of Ministers on the Council of Europe probation rules, art. 1.

  15. 15.

    Rec(99)22 of the Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation, art. 11; Rec(2006)13 of the Committee of Ministers on the Use of remand in custody, the conditions in which it takes place and the provision of safeguard against abuse, art. 7c.

  16. 16.

    Rec(92)17 of the Committee of Ministers concerning consistency in sentencing, art. 5a.

  17. 17.

    Rec(99)22, of the Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation, art. 14.

  18. 18.

    Rec(99)22 of the Committee of Ministers concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation, art. 24.

  19. 19.

    The Spanish transition to democracy started after the death of Franco (1975). In 1977, the first democratic elections were held and in 1978 the new democratic Constitution was approved. The new prison law [Ley Orgánica General Penitenciaria, 1/1979] was approved in 1979.

  20. 20.

    Spanish Constitutional Court Decision, 128/1995, 26 July 1995. In this decision, the Constitutional Court declared that pre-trial detention is only acceptable when it is needed for procedural objectives (risk that the offender makes the evidence disappear and risk of absconding) or for the protection of society (risk of recidivism ) and when there are no other measures available to reach these objectives. Moreover, pre-trial detention is only constitutional when the judge offers concrete evidence to prove the need to impose pre-trial detention for the objectives mentioned.

  21. 21.

    The criminalization of offences of non-serious domestic abuse (which passed from being a misdemeanor [falta] to a crime [delito]) and of driving offences (with more infractions now being treated as criminal offences rather than administrative offences) produced the effect of diminishing the seriousness of offences dealt with by judges and consequently increased the use of alternatives to prison. Antón and Larrauri (2009) studied the application of the new laws for offences of domestic violence and demonstrated that 90 % of the offenders convicted for such offences received an alternative sanction.

  22. 22.

    See the criticism of González (2011) who argues that we should not look at the immediate reasons for the increase of imprisonment rates (the Criminal Code of 1995) but at the causes of this change in the criminal law .

  23. 23.

    Apart from abolishing good-time credits, the criminal code of 1995 increased the penalty of some offences in comparison to the previous criminal code of 1973 (Tamarit 2007).

  24. 24.

    At the moment of writing (September 2016), the trend toward a decreasing prison population continued. In July 2016, the prison population stood at 61,000 prisoners, a ratio of 131 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants (Source: Secretaría General de Servicios Penitenciarios).

  25. 25.

    Montero and Nistal (2015) argue that another factor that has contributed to the reduction of the prison population in this period is the use of deportation as an alternative of imprisonment or as substitution of early release for foreigners. They demonstrate how in this period the ratio of foreign prisoners in the General Administration of the State has been reduced.

  26. 26.

    Resolution (65)1 of the Committee of Ministers on suspended sentence, probation and other alternatives to imprisonment , foreword.

  27. 27.

    Rec(92)17 of the Committee of Ministers concerning consistency in sentencing, art. 5.

  28. 28.

    The influence of Spanish criminal law scholars in the introduction of new alternatives to imprisonment in the Criminal Code of 1995 and in further reforms may be observed by two indicators: first, in many of their publications, they advocated the introduction of new alternatives to imprisonment and, second, since the late 1970s, criminal law scholars played an important role in the commissions which elaborated the drafts of the new criminal code.

  29. 29.

    The Spanish Supreme Court made an interpretation of the Criminal Code that, in practice, extended the abolition of good-time credits to persons sentenced for crimes committed before the enforcement of the new Criminal Code of 1995. The decision was considered constitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court but contrary to the prohibition of retroactive application of punishment by the ECtHR in Del Rio Prada v. Spain, App. No. 42750/09, 21 October 2013. On this judgment, see Molina (2016).

  30. 30.

    The Council Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA of 24 July 2008 on taking account of convictions in the member states of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings may reduce the length of sentences for those prisoners with convictions in different countries. But the Spanish law that transposes this framework decision in the Spanish legal system has made a rather restrictive interpretation. In Molina (2016), there is a discussion of the case law regarding this issue.

  31. 31.

    See the interview Cid and Contreras (2014: 84) conducted with Mr. Ramon Parés, the former director of the Catalan prison system in which he argued that ‘Before the economic crisis probably we spent too much, especially with the construction of new prisons.’

  32. 32.

    As argued in this chapter, the reduction of prison admissions in the period 1995–2015 (with the exception of the period 2005–2010) is probably due to the combination of three factors: a decrease in the use of pre-trial detention ; an increase in the use of alternatives to prison; and less serious cases arriving to the courts. The reduction of prison admissions is not due to the reduction of the number of offenders sentenced for crimes: these went up from 117,000 in 1995 to 218,000 in 2014 (Source: Spanish National Institute of Statistics).

  33. 33.

    Resolution (73)5 of the Committee of Ministers on the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners, art. 58.

  34. 34.

    The importance of art. 25, 2 of the Spanish Constitution for the principle of normalization is situated in the idea that prisoners have the constitutional rights of every citizen, and limitations to these rights should be justified by the need to protect other relevant constitutional principles. In its case law, the Spanish Constitutional Court has made the principle of normalization more effective in areas such as the right to communicate free from interference (judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court 73/1983, 30 July 1983 and 175/1997, 27 October 1997) and the right to defense in disciplinary procedures (judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court 74/1985, 18 June 1984). Other judgments of the Constitutional Court with respect to issues such as the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and its compatibility with solitary confinement (judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court 2/1987, 21 January 1987) have been more controversial. For more information on this issue, see Cid (2005a).

  35. 35.

    The Spanish Ombudsman has also pointed at the shortcomings in the treatment of inmates with mental health problems such as the prevalence of pharmacological treatment over a more integrated approach to caring for mental illness and the fact that mentally ill prisoners were often abandoned after their release from prison (Defensor del Pueblo 1998).

  36. 36.

    Circular 6/2004 concerning ex-post procedure following the use of any coercive measure; Circular 2/2007 ruling mechanical binding procedures; Circular 3/2004 on procedures to be followed in case of violence toward patients in psychiatric wards; Instruction 2/1994 on inmates’ transfer and Circular 5/2004 on emergency inmates’ transfers.

  37. 37.

    Martínez Sala and others v. Spain, App. No. 58438/00, 2 November 2004; Etxebarria Caballero v. Spain, App. No. 74016/12, 7 October 2014; Otamendi Egiguren v Spain, App. No. 47303/08, 16 October 2012; Ataun Rojo v Spain, App. No. 3344/13, 7 October 2014; Arratibel Garciandía v Spain, App. No. 58488/13, 5 May 2015. See also Queralt (2013).

  38. 38.

    In 1999, 18 % of Spanish prisoners were suffering from AIDS (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction (EMCDDA) 2001). For more information on the policies adopted by Spanish authorities to prevent contagious diseases in prisons, see Cid (2005a)

  39. 39.

    Rec(87)3 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules , art. 68. In the revised European prison rules of 2006, this sounds as follows: ‘As soon as possible after such admission, reports shall be drawn up for sentenced prisoners about their personal situations, the proposed sentence plans for each of them and the strategy for preparation for their release’ (Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules, art. 103.3).

  40. 40.

    Rec(87)3 of the Committee of Ministers on the European Prison Rules, art. 70.1; Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules, art. 33 (3, 7 and 8).

  41. 41.

    Resolution (70)1 of the Committee of Ministers on the practical organization of measures for the supervision and aftercare of conditionally sentenced or conditionally released offenders, art. 2e.

  42. 42.

    Rec(2006)2 of the Committee of Ministers on the European prison rules, art. 107.1.

  43. 43.

    Rec(2003)22 of the Committee of Ministers on conditional release (parole), art. 4 a.

  44. 44.

    Art. 65 of Resolution 73(5) states: ‘The duty of society does not end with a prisoner’s release. There should, therefore, be governmental and private agencies capable of providing efficient after-care for the released prisoner and directed towards lessening prejudice against him and towards his social rehabilitation.’ See Resolution (73)5 of the Committee of Ministers on the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners.

  45. 45.

    In case the person does not need to stay in an ordinary prison to have his/her criminogenic needs addressed, he/she may be classified in third degree and serve the prison sentence in an open institution.

  46. 46.

    It may seem strange that lawyers are part of the ‘treatment personnel’ . Initially, the prison law referred to ‘personnel with a legal and criminology background’ but since there was no degree in criminology in Spain at that time, the requirement for this dual training was eliminated. This explains why people with only a background in law are part of the treatment personnel in Spanish prisons.

  47. 47.

    Two Spanish academic members of this movement (Santiago Redondo and Vicente Garrido) had an important influence on the new policies adopted by the two penitentiary administrations in Spain.

  48. 48.

    In Spain , there are two systems of early release : open regime (here inmates are on the outside during the day and spend the night in an open prison or under a home detention curfew) and parole (here inmates leave the prison and reenter the outside world but they are under the supervision of a parole officer). Only prisoners who benefit from an open regime are eligible for parole. For more details, see Cid and Tébar (2010).

  49. 49.

    We do not have data from the General Administration of the State with respect to early release or release at the expiration of the sentence. However, the data on the use of open regime (see Fig. 5) indicate that the rates of prisoners who end their sentences through early release (in open regime and parole) are not very dissimilar between the two penitentiary administrations.

  50. 50.

    See Melloni, Case C-399/11, 26 February 2013, of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Here it was concluded that the execution of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is not conditional upon the conviction rendered in absentia being open to review in the issuing member state. In the wake of this decision, the Spanish Constitutional Court has modified its case law, establishing than the Spanish Constitution is not being violated (as it was until then) when a person is convicted in absentia (see Izquierdo 2016). The EAW has been transposed in Spanish law by the law 3/2003 of 14 March 2003 (Baras 2012).

  51. 51.

    On the influence of the ECtHR on the Spanish Constitutional Court, see also Andrés (2014), Candela (2008) and López-Guerra (2013).

  52. 52.

    Rec(2003)22 of the Committee of Ministers on conditional release (parole).

  53. 53.

    The debate between mandatory or discretionary models of parole has of course many other dimensions. Authors who favor a discretionary model argue that this model increases the stimulus for rehabilitation and reduces the rates of recidivism (Petersilia 2003). See further Cid and Tébar (2010).

  54. 54.

    Ley Orgánica 1/2015, 30 March 2015, reforming the Criminal Code of 1995. Apart from the reforms mentioned in the chapter, the new law has introduced life sentences in Spain for crimes of genocide, aggravated murder and terrorism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    José Cid & Ariadna Andreu

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  1. José Cid
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  2. Ariadna Andreu
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Tom Daems

  2. National Institute of Forensic Sciences and Criminology (NICC), Brussels, Belgium

    Luc Robert

Additional information

The research for this chapter has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project ‘Imprisonment and Recidivism’ ref. DER2014-55315-P) and by the Catalan Government (AGAUR) (Project: ‘Research Group on Desistance and Reentry’, ref. 2014SGR1481). We are grateful to Mr. Javier Nistal (from the General Spanish Administration of Prisons) and Ms. Eulalia Luque (from the Catalan Administration of Prisons) for making unpublished data available and to the editors of this book for their insightful comments to a draft version of this chapter.

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Cid, J., Andreu, A. (2017). European Prison Policy and Spanish Prison Practices: Understanding Confluences and Gaps. In: Daems, T., Robert, L. (eds) Europe in Prisons. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62250-7_10

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