Toward New Horizons: Penal Positivism and Swiss Criminal Law Reform in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries

Abstract

This chapter discusses the influence of penal positivism on the codification of Swiss criminal law. It covers the period between 1890 and 1937, when the first Swiss criminal code was enacted. In Switzerland, the notion of penal or scientific positivism has never been very common. Nevertheless, the program of social defence, promoted by different international reform movements from the 1870s onwards, was crucial for the elaboration of the criminal code of 1937.