Наказателна профилактика и мерки за сигурност: българското наказателно право през периода 1970–1989 г.
Penal Prevention and Security Measures: Bulgarian Criminal Law, 1970–1989

Summary/Abstract: The paper is a sociologal analisys of the several key elements that characterize the specific historical profile of Bulgarian criminal law under late socialism: the case of ‘hooliganism’ – a crime, a breach and an infraction; the new forms of mobilisation of socialist public against criminality; transformation of social role of court institution: from sicnaling function to allencompassing prevention; the construction of a system of educative, compulsory and security measures for protection of the socialist society; generalisation of the administrative punishment or process de-criminalisation of the offence; the specific economy of the late socialist prison: from confinement to helf-freedom and on the inefficiency of punishment; the radical diagnosis of public opinion concerning causes and conditions of criminality. The basic thesis: under the conditions of late socialism, there is an important reversal of the political strategy of penal power from revealing and sanctioning crimes to the gradual construction of an all-encompassing prevention of criminality. The new Constitution of the People’s Republic Bulgaria, passed on 18 May 1971, postulates that ‘crime prevention is a socialist obligation of the state, the society and the citizens’. The main task of the organs of justice is to establish the causes and conditions that predetermine criminality, and therefore the goal is to construct a system of measures of their restraining and elimination. Тhe People’s мilitia, the prosecution and the court must strengthen socialist law by all-round crime prevention; educate citizens in a spirit of loyalty to the fatherland and the cause of socialism, of conscientious observance of laws and work discipline. Hence the key question: their coordination with state organs and public organizations is the most important element of the overall preventive activity in the struggle against law breaches. Courts provide methodological assistance and prosecution exert monitoring on the lawfulness in the activity of Comrades courts, the Voluntary Squads of Workers, the Commissions for the Struggle with Anti-social Actions of Children and Juveniles, the Centers for Residence- Based Educative Work, and the Councils for Workplace-Based Prevention: they all have preventive functions. The aggregate result: under the conditions of late socialist, an overall social system for crime prevention has been established which, at least in principle or according to it own logic, must function efficiently.

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