The objectionable and poorly addressed “electricity and similar fraud”: criminal punishment for energy poverty and criminalized civil wrongs?

Abstract

The fraud offences in energy, fluids and telecommunications, and non-consensual use of telecommunications terminal equipment, included in the Spanish Penal Code under the title electricity fraud and similar offences, have received little attention in our criminal doctrine, despite the numerous and growing objections they raise. Nor have our judges and courts taken sufficient account of the changes in the social reality of our country in recent years (the serious phenomenon of energy poverty, great technological advances for the prevention and control of these abuses…). This academic paper proposes a restrictive interpretation and application of these offences in line with the current social reality and the principles of criminal law.