Penal Policy and Democratic Political Process: Limits of Rationality and the Role of Experts

Abstract

Although there are many critical analyses of legislative processes about penal policies in recent literature, the most common perspective adopted is either a strictly empirical point of view (providing a narrative of the brute facts of these processes), or a normative one (assessing their suitability and making proposals for improving them). However, it is not so common to present a theory of legislative processes that addresses the specific features of political process in contemporary democracies (public opinion democracies). This theory should allow us to adequately understand the causal (sociological, psychosocial and political) dynamics that determines the possible outcomes of political discussion on penal issues, as well as the role of experts. Actually, the objective of this paper is to propose a model for such a theory.