Does Public Opinion Matter for Criminal Law? Revisable Life Imprisonment in Spain and Its Relationship with Social Demands

Since the 1980s, criminological and legal literature has dealt both theoretically and empirically with the phenomenon of punitive populism. In Spain, from 2003 to 2019, punitivisim has had a prominent role with 33 modifications to the Spanish Criminal Code. These included the introduction of revisable permanent prison for the most serious crimes, which was explicitly justified in the legal system by the social support for this punishment. In this sense, the political power has claimed the need to maintain and increase the scope of this punishment in our country based on certain opinion polls whose methodology and results have been seriously questioned by some empirical studies. All of this has reopened the debate among experts on whether citizens should be considered when making legislative decisions that directly affect the values of a democratic state in general and fundamental rights in particular. This paper addresses the question of the data obtained on public opinion and reflects on whether this should be incorporated into criminal law.