Characteristics of Penal Populist Policies: A Comparative Study

Penal populism researches have provided valuable data about characteristics of penal populist policies. Generally، penal populist policies are tough، popular، symbolic، emotional and without scientific bases. Penal populist reactions appear in the light of popular moves and emotional environment. These polices attempt to control criminal phenomena by penal mechanisms in a shortest possible time. This approach does not feel the need to scientific knowledge about criminal phenomena. It legitimizes politics by focusing on public demands and puts the responsibility of failures in crime control on supposed enemies. Although scientific analysis about efficiency of penal populist reactions shows that this policies could not attain their idealistic promises، this article attempts to analyze the most important characteristics of penal populist polices and points to manifestations of these policies in comparison with Iran penal policy.