Sociological and legal analysis of criminal culpability

Abstract

This study aims to analyze criminal culpability from a sociological and legal perspective, seeking to understand the limits of individual responsibility in the face of social, psychological, and deterministic influences that shape human behavior. It examines the extent to which the offender can be considered responsible for his actions, through the confrontation between the theories of free will and determinism, investigating whether criminality may be conceived as an inevitable consequence of external and internal conditions beyond the individual’s control. The research also addresses the main theories underlying criminal culpability — psychological, psychological-normative, and pure normative — and their variations, such as co-culpability and reverse co-culpability, analyzing how these conceptions influence the understanding of criminal conduct and the application of the judgment of moral reproach in criminal law. The study is based on doctrinal and sociological analysis, in dialogue with Zygmunt Bauman’s thought and contemporary criminal law scholarship, in order to demonstrate the interdependence between freedom, society, and criminal responsibility.