Fight against crime

The "criminal question" occupied the politics and public discourse of the Fin de siècle like hardly any other topic. Inspired by an international reform movement, jurists, social politicians, and doctors formulated a criminal policy that eventually made its way into the penal code of 1937 and continues to shape the Swiss legal system to this day. What was new was that, in sentencing, not only the crime itself was considered, but also the personality of the offender. The author examines the complex background of the Swiss penal code from a social, political, and legal historical perspective. He situates the codification within the context of a transnational reform discussion that paved the way for a preventive approach to crime fighting. The lengthy implementation processes are also traced, which not only affected the federal...