[Criminologic problems of political change in Spain]

In this article the Author considers the modern-day and historical situation as regards the administration of justice in Spain, pausing to make a particularly careful analysis of those crimes whose rate of increase, over the past few years, has been the greatest. He runs back over the various stages of Spain's recent history: from the period preceding Franco's regime, during which a multiplicity of criminological theories were developed by Spanish authors, leading to the creation of a school of jurisprudence, in which theory and practice tended toward seeking a balance between freedom and security; through the period of the dictatorship, in which there was a tightening-up of the preceding trend, with a definite predisposition towards security, whether within the State or external to it (to be noted--the Author observes--is that this security in reality is not a guarantee of the lives and liberties of the citizens, but rather only a safeguarding of the State from attacks on its supremacy and power); to the successive period of the democracy, which came about without cruel and revolutionary upsets, but nonetheless has felt for many years the effects of the preceding political climate; criminality is increasing considerably, but the administration of justice is not able to soundly and accurately evaluate it, it having functioned at only 45% efficiency--or so says the Author--up until 1978: the imbalances in the society that can be seen in its passage through the various political regimes are, therefore, present too in the field of criminality; this, in fact, is apparently decreasing (since crimes against the external and internal security of the State are decreasing, as the number of convictions are decreasing); but in reality this criminality is undergoing a strong evolutionary movement, due more than anything else to the fact that the tendency is to give priority to liberty, and no longer to security, as is true in fact of every democratic regime. Even in 1978, when the new regime was by now consolidated and stabilized, the administration of justice had found too stability and balance; the consequences of this are, on the one hand, a decrease in crimes against the state as such, and on the other hand, an increase in the crimes peculiar to a democratic country (such as terrorism, drug-pushing, robbery) committed by ever-younger criminals.