The article discusses criminal policy, understood as court procedures intended to counteract and limit crime by applying provisions of criminal law. The chapter begins with an analysis of diverse definitions of criminal and penal policy. Then, mechanism of action of such policies in the aspect of administering punishments to perpetrators of criminal deeds is discussed. An analysis of statistical data concerning administering particular types of punishments allows to draw certain conclusions concerning penal policy employed in Poland in the difficult period of social change. The most often administered punishment in the first decade of the 21st century is deprivation of liberty (imprisonment) with conditional suspension (probation), imprisonment and fines are slightly less frequent, the least frequently courts sentence unconditional imprisonment. The picture of the data allows only to make a draft of contemporary visions of solving social problems related with crime – or rather lack of such visions. The reasons of incoherence and – in many cases – irrationality of our criminal policy can be seen in many factors which are impossible to discuss or even list in one article. However it is worth to notice that undoubtedly the progressing expansion and politicization of criminal law should be limited and it should be acknowledged that criminal law is not the best remedy for social problems, which include crime.

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The article consists of two parts. The first systematises definitions of penitentiary law and presents relations between penitentiary law and other branches of law and fields of science. The voices in discussion on penitentiary law sometimes differ, even in such basic issues as the scope of the very term. This sometimes gives rise to difficulties in qualifying particular provisions to a particular branch of law and causes doubts which rules to apply to particular institutions. Relations between penitentiary law and executive penal law, procedural law, penitentiary science and penal and penitentiary policies are discussed. The second part of the article discusses selected problems of current penal policy related most of all to the use of imprisonment sentence. Between penitentiary law and penitentiary policy or, more broadly speaking, penal policy there are obvious relations. On one hand, this policy is shaped on the basis of the letter of law, on the other hand, based on collected experience, it forces changes in law which fails to respond to actual challenges. Sometimes penitentiary policy, and even mere penitentiary practice, influences provisions of penal law, including penitentiary law, directly. It also happens that law and penitentiary policy (or penal one) fail to meet as far as their goals and assumptions are concerned. It seems it is so in the case of imprisonment, which often looks different in penitentiary law provisions and in statistics resulting from employment of penal and penitentiary policy. The basic paradox consists in that, in spite of observed decrease in crime levels , penitentiary system becomes more and more inefficient. Poland has one of the highest prisonisation indices in Europe and constantly growing number of persons sentenced by the courts and waiting for imprisonment sentence to be executed .The waiting line for imprisonment is approaching the number of the imprisoned. This may be due to a several reasons. Firstly, since the beginning of 1990s there has been a steady increase in the shortest imprisonment sentences (of up to 6 months) which were often administered to those guilty of driving a vehicle under alcohol influence. Secondly, Polish prisons are places where a significant number of imprisonments due to probation violations are served – which shows the weakness in execution of alternatives to incarceration. Another problem is cancellation of suspended sentences. The criminal code provided for two ways a suspended sentence can be cancelled, facultative and obligatory. The latter raised serious doubts and was questioned by the Constitutional Tribunal in its decree of 17.07.2013 r., file no. SK 9/10 (as published in the Journal of Laws as item 905).

The text describes the latest amendments to the provisions of law regarding the protection of victims of domestic violence from the perpetrators. The primary protection mechanism is the ability to guarantee separation of the perpetrator from the victim by issue of an order for the perpetrator to vacate the apartment/home. In the Polish legal system it is possible in both the criminal and civil procedures. The possibility of using the civil procedure has been significantly expanded, which may make protection of victims of domestic violence more effective.