ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the penal law of the Cuban Revolution has changed over time. Cuban revolutionary penal law, along with other instruments, has been used in various ways to help build a socialist system of social relations. Misdemeanors, which had been considered minor crimes under the penal laws of 1870 and 1936, were excluded from the penal code of 1979 and covered by special legislation of an administrative nature. Many breaches of social and economic discipline that during the “hard years” were included in the penal law have been transferred to the first labor code through various measures designed to induce workers to maintain social, labor, and economic order. In addition, a military penal law—more severe, of course, than that applied to civilians—regulates offenses perpetrated by members of the armed forces or the Ministry of the Interior.
