Ultima ratio: alla ricerca di limiti all'espansione del diritto penale

Since the Enlightenment, criminal law, characterized by the use of the harshest and most disruptive sanctions, should represent the last resort (ultima ratio) for the defense of individual and collective interests. Posed this historical premise, the essay studies theorical and normative foundation of this principle and then proves the effectiveness of the principle in the context of the present criminal policy. It results clearly the crisis of the principle in presence of an uncontrolled drift to criminalization and some of the causes are studied, causes such as the expansion of the scale of interests protected and the dominance of prevention as criminal paradigm. However only reaffirming criminal law in its role of ultima ratio it will be possible to restore esteem and effectiveness of criminal law, and, with this aim, the essay proposes some corrective solutions, before on the interpretative level and then on the legislative one, in order to reduce the intervention of criminal law.