Short imprisonment
The short term of imprisonment is a term used specifically in German sentencing law : it describes a term of imprisonment of less than six months.
According to the will of the German legislature, the imposition of short prison sentences should be avoided if possible. The background is the thought that the overall effect of the short prison sentences on the personality of the perpetrator is rather negative, because on the one hand the perpetrator is snatched from his entire personal environment (further dissocialization), on the other hand, in the short period of the prison sentence, a real rehabilitation of the perpetrator is hardly achieved becomes.
Section 47 of the Criminal Code (StGB) therefore stipulates that a short term of imprisonment may only be imposed if this is necessary due to special circumstances in the act or the personality of the offender or in order to defend the legal system .
There are also peculiarities with regard to the suspended sentence : While in the case of custodial sentences the suspended sentence is to be rejected in principle even if the defense of the legal system requires the execution of the sentence, this is not possible with a short sentence.
