Conditional Release in the Perspective of Modern Croatian Legislation and the Criminal Justice Practice of the Probation Service

Mogućnost uvjetnog otpuštanja zatvorenika postoji u mnogim europskim zemljama. O značaju tog instituta govore i europske preporuke, u kojima se uvjetni otpust navodi kao jedan od najučinkovitijih načina postizanja socijalne reintegracije zatvorenika i prevencije recidivizma. Radi se o važnom institutu penitencijarnog prava i jednom od najvažnijih mehanizama moderne penološke prakse, naročito u smislu ostvarivanja participativnog pristupa izvršavanju zatvorske kazne. Svojevrsna reforma tog instituta, ostvarena kroz nedavnu opću reformu kaznenopravnih sankcija u našoj zemlji, prikazana je u prvom dijelu rada kroz komparativnu analizu ranijih i aktualnih zakonskih odredbi. S obzirom na europske preporuke jedna je od zadaća hrvatskog zakonodavstva bila i uvesti nadzor probacijske službe u institut uvjetnog otpusta. Stoga se u drugom dijelu rada daje prikaz donošenja i promjena zakonskih propisa, ustrojavanja te službe i aktualnih modaliteta uključenosti službe u izvršavanje uvjetnog otpusta, uz analizu nekih obilježja uvjetnog otpusta i populacije kojoj je uz uvjetni otpust bio određen i nadzor probacijske službe. Analizirana je dokumentacija iz 6176 predmeta uvjetnog otpusta koji su zaprimljeni na izvršavanje u razdoblju od 2013. do 2019. godine . Osim na respektabilan broj uvjetnih otpusta koji se izriču i na intenciju hrvatskog zakonodavca da konstantno usklađuje domaće zakonodavstvo s najsuvremenijom europskom legislativom, radom se upozorava i na značaj intervencija usmjerenih na socijalnu reintegraciju zatvorenika, koje su dodatno omogućene ustrojavanjem probacijske službe, kao i na važnost evaluiranja domaće prakse izvršnog kaznenog prava i provođenja istraživanja.The possibility of c onditional release is available in many European countries. The importance of this institute is also supported by European recommendations indicating that conditional release is one of the most effective and constructive ways of achieving the social reintegration of prisoners and for the prevention of recidivism. It is an important measure of penitentiary law and one of the most important mechanisms of modern penological practice, especially in terms of achieving a participatory approach to the execution of prison sentences. The fi rst part of the paper presents one kind of reform of this mechanism achieved through the recent reform of general criminal sanctions in Croatia, through a comparative analysis of previous and current legal provisions. With respect to European recommendations, one of the tasks of the Croatian legislation was to introduce supervision by the probation service into the institute of conditional release. Consequently, the second part of the paper presents an overview of the adoption and changes of the legal regulations, the organisation and development of the probation service, and the current modalities of the involvement of the probation service in conditional release cases, with an analysis of some characteristics of conditional release and its population ordered into probation supervision. The research analysed the documentation of the probation service of 6,176 conditional release cases, which were executed from 2013 to 2019. Apart from the respectable number of conditional release decisions and the intention of the Croatian legislator to continuously harmonise domestic with the latest European legislation, this paper also shows the importance of interventions aimed at the social reintegration of prisoners which are additionally provided through the established probation service, as well as the importance of evaluating domestic executive criminal law practice and of conducting further research