Abstract

According to various studies, one of the reasons of the criticism that Polish citizens express in regard to their judicial system, is the opinion that punishments ordered by courts are overly indulgent. Expectations of more rigid sentences accompanied by politicians’ conviction that there exists a need to react to them by means of increasing repression, are specific to a phenomenon of penal populism. Although in the literature it is sometimes explained that penal populism results from the lack of sense of social security, its sources are far more complex: on the one hand, it follows from negligence in the way the judiciary communicates with the society, and on the other, it results from the fact that the modern media coverage is intended to build a narrative that is fragmentary, sensational, as well as emotional. The level of influence exerted by these two factors is determined by the dynamics of social changes, related, among others, to the process of globalisation. Penal populism manifests itself clearly in the mainstream style of rhetoric in polish public debate; it leads to various hasty ad hoc legislative initiatives that are intended to satisfy the society’s demands. Usually instead of solving problems, it is going to aggravate social conflicts and expand the sphere of the government’s control.