Criminal Policy on Prevention and Combating of Espionage Activity in Poland. An Aanalysis Illustrated with the Statutory Amendments Adopted in 2023

The research problem addressed in the text concerns the criminal policy concerned with pre-venting and combating espionage offences in Poland in 1998–2023. A criminal policy is understood as a particular form of legal policy, encompassing the programming of anti-crime measures through penal-ties and other legal measures, criminalisation and decriminalisation regulations, and the deliberate creation of penal provisions. The main objective of the analysis is to juxtapose the previous legislation with the new legal solutions criminalising and penalising further types of espionage, which were introduced in 2023. The consequence of the comparative purpose thus defined is the presentation of an assessment of the new solutions from the perspective of penal policy. The analysis is based on two approaches: the dogmatic and the historical-comparative one. The dogmatic approach focuses on the analysis of the penal law provisions themselves and their interpretation, while the historical-comparative approach juxtaposes the current provisions with the earlier changes following the diachronic perspective. The study aims to answer questions about the differences between the current and previous legislation concerned with the criminalisation of espionage, and to assess the effectiveness of the 2023 amendments.