Criminalizing Lifestyles of “Asociality” in Germany. The Historical Experience and a Potential Grounding in the Doctrine of “Functionalism”

Abstract

This paper investigates the historical evolution of the theory of “functionalism” in Germany in relation to the criminalisation of forms of “asociality”. After the analysis of the most representative authors of this theory, this paper concludes that the approaches of Roxin, Frisch and Freund do not seem to offer a basis for the re-penalisation of “asocial” lifestyles. However, the approaches of Jakobs and Pawlik could support such re-penalisation.