Tempo e pena carceraria

Based on a brief refl ection about the concept of time, it is pointed out that the classical penal system has conceived the penalty, in its prison form, as pure chronological time (χρόνος - chrónos), depriving of a signifi cantly lived time (καιρός - kairós). The text therefore describes the various areas in which Italian criminal law has considered relevant, as regards the methods of response in concrete to the crime, behaviour over time that assumes value in a re-educational and reparative sense: although it remains anchored to the traditional view of punishment at the time it is imposed at the end of the trial. Hence the need to revisit the concept of criminal sanction in a programmatic-projective sense (where recourse to imprisonment is indeed an extrema ratio): identifying as a real principle of criminal law – deductible from the Constitution – the fact that it cannot lead to an insignifi cance of time in the life of the convicted person.