SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT LIFE IMPRISONMENT AND OTHER SIMILAR SANCTIONS.

Abstract

Th is work has as purpose to think about the justifi cation of the life imprisonment and other similar penalties in the framework of the penal sanctions. Th e text is focused on a critical analysis of its constitutionality and underlines the objections which could be considered regarding, specially, with the negative special prevention’s eff ect, its compatibility with the fundamental rights, its proportionality as guideline of justice, its purpose in the context of the Spanish legal order and its foreseeable eff ects. Th is discussion drives to a wider thought about the penalties of imprisonment of long length which, actually, are equivalent to life imprisonment; and also about other kinds of sanctions which theoretically are not penal ones, as the safety measures which deprive of freedom, when they are of life or undetermined length. In the last cases they have the same defects than the life imprisonment and therefore, the same objections about their constitutionality could be made.