The evolution of European Union criminal law (1957-2012)

inging about a harsher criminal law across the European Union whilst placing
additional pressure on more lenient States.
These qualities of ECL mirror to some extent tendencies that national legal orders in
Europe and even around the world have been experiencing. In fact, the harshening of
national legal systems is a phenomenon common to many western legal orders for
some decades now. Whilst the USA and the UK are the most striking examples in this
matter, 687 many other European countries have been evolving towards a harsher
penality either through the imposition of severer sentences or by passing stricter
statutes (although the studies available focus almost exclusively on punishment and not
on the definition of offences). 688 Hence, the nature of harmonisation of national
criminal law so far seems to have a repressive emphasis. This, it will be seen in the
next chapter, has been further complemented by another mechanism of integration in
criminal matters – the principle of mutual recognition – under which State prosecution
and punishment has also been strengthened.
687 See, for example, J. Simon, Governing through Crime, supra note 568; D. Garland, The
Culture of Control, supra note 42; and B. Hudson, “Diversity, crime and criminal justice”, in M.
Maguire, R. Morgan, and R. Reiner, (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford: OUP,
2007) 158; M. Cavadino, J. Dignan, Penal Systems, supra note 78; V. Ruggiero, V. Ryan and J.
Sim (eds) Western European Penal Systems: A Critical Anatomy (London: Sage Publications,
1995).
688 M. Cavadino, J. Dignan, Penal Systems, supra note 78. Differences amongst EU countries are
nevertheless very sharp. Data of 2003, for example, shows that some new Member States had a
prison population proportionately six times higher than Scandinavian countries (the latter
imprisoned in average 50 to 70 prisoners per 100 000 inhabitants whilst the former imprisoned an
average of 350 prisoners per 100 000 inhabitants).
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