| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 法律學研究所 === 103 === In recent years, Taiwan society often promotes legislative amendments because of public opinion. Because of excessive reports of mass media, people feel panic and angry. They do not trust the government, ignoring the data which experts and scholars research. These characteristics just like most Western countries ever met, and they call it “penal populism”. The objective of this paper is to consider whether the criminal policy of Taiwan has been affected by penal populism and how to do it.
Populism is a political doctrine that appeals to the interests and conceptions (such as hopes and fears) of the general people, especially contrasting with the interests of the elite. Penal populism is populism in criminal justice. It feeds on expressions of anger, disenchantment and disillusionment of criminal justice. As with populism itself, penal populism usually takes the form of ‘feelings and intuitions’ rather than some more quantifiable indicator.
Most Western countries have been challenged by penal populism, but still some countries have not. They resist penal populism through democratic culture and social structure. For example, consensus democracies help control public sentiment by good tradition cultural that are tolerance and rationality. As a result, the development of penal populism in consensus democracies is limited.
Have penal populism affected criminal policy in Taiwan? The answer is yes, but it has not been out of control. As Taiwan's political history, electors in Taiwan do not care about politicians in favor of what policy. Therefore, although the people expect tougher punishment, penal populism only appears on particular criminal policy, and has not been become a runaway reaction.
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