Aproximación a la reiteración delictiva y a la teoría concursal desde la teoría de la pena

The article begins with a brief outline of the main current theories on the role of punishment, recognizing both the dominance of special prevention as the primary function of criminal law enforcement, and the boom experienced by modern expressive-retributive theories, and its relationship with a positive general prevention theory as the one held by Jakobs. Then, the possibility to explain the treatment given to the different cases of criminal reiteration from the purposes posited by the different theories of punishment is analyzed. Thus, five cases of criminal reiteration are distinguished and the distinctive quality of each is determined: the apparent concurrency (including specialty cases, subsidiarity and consumption), the continuing offense, the real concurrence, recidivism and ideal concurrence. This allows analyzing the treatment that each theory of punishment should grant to every criminal reiteration case in order to support the central role attributed to criminal punishment.