Los actos preparatorios punibles

Abstract

As a general rule, acts directed towards the commission of a crime du- ring the stages leading to the perpetration go unpunished. However, the Spanish

Criminal Code establishes as part of its general provisions the existence of “pu- nishable preparatory actions”, which are not considered in Argentina. This work is intended to provide an analysis on punishable preparatory actions set forth by the Spanish laws in order to compare them with the regulations established for some of these actions under the Argentine Criminal Code. To perform this analysis and delineate the object of study, this work will first briefly address the concept of attempt and the theories that throughout the history of criminal law have tried to offer grounds for its punishment. Then an outline on preparatory actions in general will be given followed by the regulation of punishable preparatory actions under the Spanish Code. Subsequently, an analysis on special provisions of the Argen- tine Criminal Code will be offered to evidence whether, even though preparatory actions are not established under the general provisions, this sort of advantage is somewhat blurred by the existence of offences that constitute an advance in the pu- nishment of other offences. Finally, this work will offer some thoughts on the sub- ject addressed across the entire work, this is the legitimacy of advance punishment and its connection to the material definition of crime and the idea of prevention.