Criminal Code reform: reviewable life prison, minor offenses and asset forfeiture

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. A new penalty of reviewable permanent imprisonment is created for especially serious murders, such as those of minors under sixteen, serial killings or killings within criminal organizations, and for genocide involving death. The penalty is reviewed after twenty-five to thirty-five years served, and the court reviews every two years whether it must be kept.
2. Book III of the Criminal Code is repealed, meaning minor offenses called faltas disappear. The less serious ones that remain become delitos leves (minor crimes), punished mostly with fines, and many conducts are moved to administrative or civil channels.
3. The age of sexual consent is raised from thirteen to sixteen. Sexual acts with minors under that age will be a crime, except for consensual relations with someone close in age and development.
4. Forfeiture is expanded: courts can seize assets from the convict's other criminal activities (extended forfeiture), seize assets held by third parties, and do so even without a conviction in certain cases. An Asset Recovery and Management Office is created.
5. Suspension of prison sentences is reformed under a single, more flexible system. Parole becomes a suspension of the remaining sentence, and first-time offenders with short sentences may get it after serving half the sentence.
6. Corruption is punished more severely: disqualification penalties are raised, disqualification from running for office (passive suffrage) is added, and a new crime of illegal financing of political parties is created.
7. New crimes are defined: forced marriage, stalking, unauthorized sharing of intimate images, and tampering with electronic monitoring devices. Computer crimes and animal abuse and abandonment offenses are also strengthened.
8. Cancellation of criminal records is simplified and its time limits are revised, reaching ten years for serious penalties. Convictions from other European Union member states count as records for repeat-offender and sentence-suspension purposes.

Who it affects

• People convicted of very serious crimes: They may receive reviewable permanent imprisonment, with periodic review of their situation.
• Victims of sexual crimes and gender violence: Greater protection: age of consent at sixteen, a new stalking crime, and no prior complaint required in gender violencegender violence Violence a woman suffers from a current or former partner because she is a woman. cases.
• Habitual and repeat offenders: Repeated theft and fraud are punished as an aggravated crime, no longer as minor offenses.
• Companies and organizations: Clearer rules on their criminal liability and on forfeiture of their assets.
• Officials convicted of corruption: Longer disqualification penalties and a ban on running for elective office during the sentence.

Words worth knowing

Prisión permanente revisable

Reviewable permanent imprisonment: a prison sentence with no fixed end date, but a court reviews it periodically and may grant parole if the person is rehabilitated.

Delito leve

Minor crime: a low-severity offense, punished mostly with fines, replacing the old faltas.

Decomiso

Forfeiture: a court-ordered seizure of assets or money that come from a crime or were used to commit it.

Libertad condicional

Parole: early release from prison under conditions; if they are broken, the person returns to prison.

Sufragio pasivo

Passive suffrage: the right to run as a candidate in elections.

gender violence

Violence a woman suffers from a current or former partner because she is a woman.

It summarizes the law as published in the BOE. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries