Социологически опит върху понятието „опасен рецидив“, или как е възможен патологичният престъпник
Sociologicаl Essay on the Concept “Dangerous Recidivist” or How is the Pаthologic Criminal Possible

Summary/Abstract: This article is an attempt at a sociological reconstruction of the identity of the dangerous recidivist or pathologic criminal – a juridico-medical subject who possesses a hybrid constitution of criminality and psychopathy – as it was constructed in the Bulgarian penal practice. The analytical problem, which guides me here, is: how the power’s system of cognitive relations between the juridical concept of “recidivism” and the medical notion of “pathology” work out through the bipolar medium of the criminological term of “danger”. There are three discourse conditions of possibility for building a similar subjective constitution: on the one hand, diffusive scattered particularities of the character-behavior of the law violator were condensed, subordinated, generalized through the psychological concept of “personality”. On the other hand, the real capacity of the notion of “pathology” was optimally broadened; as such, it now covers not only the referent field of the illness, but also the “irregularly” constructed personality, which demonstrates itself publicly through typical antisocial features. The third discourse operation accomplishes on the juridical concept of “recidivism”; within the institutionally stigmatized identity of the recidivist, there is deposited completely biography and crime, dangerousness and anomaly, therefore criminality and psychopathy. Here, the biomedical concept of “instinct” is a fundamental bearer of the problem of anomaly or once more the engine by means of abnormal criminality fi nd out the principle of its own coordination. In front of us is the dangerous recidivist or the pathologic criminal; within his/her social figure obviously appear in what manner law and medicine, application the criminal justice and explanation the psychiatric truth is impossible to function separately.

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