Minimal Intervention and the Decriminalization of Embezzlement: A Narrative Review of the State of the Art

Abstract

A narrative review was conducted of the state of the art regarding the political and criminal foundations of minimal intervention as applied to the crime of embezzlement and the doctrinal proposal to transfer this offense to administrative penalty law. A body of literature was consulted that integrated continental legal doctrine on minimal intervention and criminal fragmentation with Anglo-American doctrine on overcriminalization. Following the SALSA framework, five thematic areas were identified based on verifiably accessible sources in Scopus, Dialnet, SciELO, Redalyc, SSRN, and other repositories. The results show that the doctrinal question of whether simple embezzlement can be addressed administratively rather than criminally remains open. The discussion identified four unresolved issues. There is a largely unexplored convergence between the continental and Anglo-American traditions, and a conceptual fragility of the “ultima ratio” principle emerged. There is also a lack of conclusive evidence regarding the deterrent effectiveness of Peru’s administrative sanctioning regime, and the need for differentiated treatment of the aggravated form of the offense was highlighted. It is concluded that the decriminalization of simple embezzlement is defensible, but its automatic extension to the aggravated form is not sufficiently supported by the available evidence.