28:T453,

The enactment of Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA encounters numerous impediments, with Spain representing a particularly instructive case. Although transposed into Spanish legislation in December 2014, the utilisation of this instrument remains notably infrequent. This scarcity in application is, in part, due to its omission in cases of conditional release, where there is a marked preference for pre-transposition statutes in affording such benefits to EU citizens. Nonetheless, insights from the annual meeting of Penitentiary Surveillance Prosecutors herald a pivot towards a mandatory engagement with Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA. This anticipated shift portends a broader adoption of this legal mechanism in the coming years, especially concerning conditional release. This paper delves into the challenges inherent in implementing Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA, with a particular focus on the Spanish jurisdiction. Following a thorough examination of relevant data and scholarly discourse, this study proposes a suite of recommendations aimed at enhancing the utility of this legal tool.

29:T497,

With Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA, about the application of the ‘principle of mutual recognition to sentences and probation decisions with a view to the supervision of probation measures and alternative sanctions’, the European legislator intervened on the matter of criminal enforcement in order to coordinate those cases in which an ‘alternative sanction’ is issued in one country and executed in a foreign country. This regulatory act, in addition to allowing the implementation of some founding principles of the European Union – in particular the mutual recognition of judicial decisions as well as the freedom of residence and movement in the various member countries – also pursues the express aim of ‘strengthen the possibility of social reintegration of the convicted person, allowing him to maintain, among other things, family, linguistic and cultural ties, but also to improve the control of compliance with the probation measures and alternative sanctions with the aim of preventing recidivism, taking therefore consideration to the protection of victims and to the public, generally’.