jail

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A prison (also criminal in Austria ) is any place where people are held against their will (cf. the definition of the "places of detention" visited by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture ). The term therefore goes further than that of the penal institution (in Germany), penal institution (in Austria) or penal institution (in Switzerland), which only includes prisons that serve the penal system, i.e. institutions for the accommodation of prisoners on remand and prisoners as well as preventive detention .

Structurally, a prison usually consists of a large area with external protective devices (fence or wall with watchtowers) and, inside, of buildings to accommodate the prisoners, the guards and to accommodate social facilities. The clearly visible open spaces are not only used to temporarily allow the prisoners to stay outdoors, but also to better monitor the access to the fences.

A wall surrounds the prison building to prevent breakouts .

Designations

Prison used to be an official designation of German criminal law . Today prisons in Germany are called correctional facilities , where until the new regulation by the Great Criminal Law Reform in 1970, prison was officially a special type of deprivation of liberty in contrast to, for example, penitentiary and workhouse .

In Switzerland, prisons are called penal institution , correctional facility or prison , depending on the canton or function ; in Austria prison . The national prison is the only detention facility in Liechtenstein .

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment also uses the term place of detention .

Colloquially, prison stands for any type of criminal imprisonment . There are also numerous other expressions, including mock names: (der) Knast (from Yiddish “knassen” for “punish”), (behind) Swedish curtains , Café Viereck, (the) little glue, (behind) bars , (in) kahn and (under) construction , in Austria also (the) ports, Zieglstadl, (the) Tschumpus or Sieved Luft (breathe) . In Switzerland and Germany the prison is also known as the “box”. Previously, some places was called the prison also Büttelēy or Bütteley because it under the supervision of the bailiff was that often his apartment had there.

history

Ancient and Middle Ages

Prisons already existed in ancient times, but their function and importance differed greatly from today's prisons. In fact, the imprisonment of criminals played only a subordinate role in the catalog of punishments until the beginning of the modern era. Instead, a variety of different sanctions were imposed, such as fines, shameful penalties (pillory), banishment from the city (especially against vagrants and petty criminals), draconian corporal punishment (flogging, chopping off limbs, blinding, cutting off ears, ...) or death sentences (beheading , Hanging, burning, wheeling), which were mostly performed in public.

Debt tower in Nuremberg: Towers that were part of the city wall were often used as prisons

There was basically no deprivation of liberty as an independent punishment, people were mostly only temporarily locked in prisons, either in the sense of pre-trial detention or until they received their actual sentence.

Prisons were primarily used for security purposes, for example to detain the accused until the start of their trial or to convict until their death penalty was carried out. A prominent example is Socrates , who spent the time leading up to his execution in prison. A prominent inmate of the Roman prisons is the apostle Paul , who suffered several imprisonment stays among Roman officials, including about two years in Caesarea, only to be interrogated again and again until he was finally questioned personally by the emperor in Rome and ultimately sentenced to death. The Bible reports about it in places, as do ancient historians. Debtors were also imprisoned until they had paid their creditors (see also Debt Prison ). In the 19th century, up to 50 percent of prison inmates in England were debtors.

In the Middle Ages, castle dungeons, cellars of town halls or towers that were part of the city walls were often used as prisons (hence the phrase "tower" for a prison breakout). Another form of imprisonment outside of prisons consisted of forced labor , such as in mountain mines or on galleys. With the discovery of new continents at the beginning of the early modern period, criminals were also banished overseas to the newly established colonies.

Prisons were not infrequently places of torture, which was used, for example, at the time of the Inquisition to obtain confessions. Death sentences imposed on heretics could in some cases be commuted to life imprisonment (such as when the defendants recanted).

Early modern age

It was not until the late 16th century that the first forerunners of modern prisons emerged in the form of workhouses and penitentiaries in many European countries . One of the first facilities of this kind was the workhouse in Bridewell Castle , which Edward VI. Established in 1555 at the instigation of the Anglican Church. It became the model for similar workhouses, which in English-speaking countries were often called "bridewells". The Amsterdam Tuchthuis (penitentiary) was established in the Netherlands in 1596. It was a model for the Schallenhaus , the first prison in Switzerland founded in 1615. However, the majority of the inmates of workhouses and penitentiaries were not criminals, but mainly beggars and vagabonds, i.e. social marginalized groups who aroused public offense.

Prisoners processing hemp in Bridewell Prison ( William Hogarth , 1732)

As a result of the Reformation , society's relationship to poverty had changed: while poverty was once considered a god-given fate that had to be alleviated through alms, Calvinism in particular saw poverty as self-inflicted. In the course of the moral renewal of the Reformation, the fight against vices was also increasingly in the focus of society. Therefore, penitentiaries were, so to speak, “moral prisons” in which drunkards, prostitutes and adulterers were locked up and were supposed to improve themselves through hard work and religious instruction.

From the end of the 16th century onwards, numerous prisons were built in Germany: 1588 in Nuremberg, 1609 in Bremen, 1613 in Lübeck, 1622 in Hamburg, 1629 in Danzig, 1679 in Frankfurt, 1682 in Munich and 1712 Berlin. Often workhouses and penitentiaries were run by families who lived off the cheap labor of the inmates and on public grants. Workhouses for women were often called "spinning houses" because they were mainly used for weaving, spinning and sewing clothes.

In the course of time, the penitentiaries developed more and more into "normal" prisons, in which actual criminals were also locked up. At the same time, the prisons, which often had to finance themselves, became increasingly neglected in the 17th and 18th centuries. The numerous death and corporal sentences were increasingly criticized as a result of the Reformation and later the Enlightenment, which led to a decrease in these sentences. Prisons were seen as a humane alternative, but this led to increasing overcrowding.

18th and 19th centuries

The English Calvinist John Howard proposed a first comprehensive criticism and reform proposals for the prison system : in 1773 he became High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, as such he was also responsible for the local prisons. Howard was appalled by the conditions there, but his complaints to the higher authorities had no effect. In the following years, Howard made many trips through Great Britain and Europe, during which he visited numerous prisons. In 1777 he published the book The State of the Prisons in England and Wales , in which he described the prisons of the time as follows: "... sewer, criminal school, brothel, gambling den and liquor bar, just not an institution in the service of criminal law and the fight against crime."

John Howard (1726-1790)

Howard called for prisons to be reformed in key areas:

  • Meaningful work for the prisoners and fair wages
  • Fight against laziness, gambling and alcohol
  • Healthy eating
  • Hygienic conditions by setting up baths etc.
  • A tiered prison system in which prisoners can obtain relief from prison through good conduct
  • Solitary confinement to prevent criminal contamination
  • Sufficient pay for the guards
  • Regular inspections of the prisons by the supervisory authorities

Many of Howard's proposals have been incorporated and implemented by English law over time. In Germany, Howard's ideas were spread primarily through the Protestant chaplain, Heinrich Balthasar Wagnitz.

Parallel to Howard there were also prison reforms in the United States , which, among other things, served as a model for reforms in Germany. Important impulses came from the Quaker religious community , which called for the abolition of the death penalty and corporal punishment and drew attention to abuses in prisons. Pennsylvania was a Quaker stronghold, in 1787 the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was founded here. In 1821 she pushed through the construction of the Eastern State Penitentiary , where the prisoners should find their way back to a life with God according to the religious ideas of the Quakers.

This was to be achieved through strict isolation: the prisoners were housed in individual cells, were not allowed to communicate with each other and were only visited by chaplains. The only reading allowed was the Bible. The prisoners should come to repentance and repentance in solitude. Charles Dickens , who visited the prison in 1842, criticized the "Pennsylvania system" as "cruel and wrong."

The Eastern State Penitentiary was one of the first prisons in the Panoptikon design, in which cells (tracts) are grouped around a center in a radial pattern (see #Construction of prisons ). In 1848 the first German Panoptikon prison was opened in Bruchsal , followed by Berlin-Moabit in 1849 .

In contrast to the “solitary system” in the Eastern State Penitentiary, the “silent system” was in effect in the Auburn State Prison in New York, which opened in 1818: inmates were not allowed to communicate with one another, but were not isolated for this purpose. Instead, they faced flogging for the slightest violation. They were only housed in solitary cells at night; during the day they had to do work together. In the United States, the "Auburn system" prevailed in most prisons.

Eastern State Penitentiary (1855)

In 1842, Pentonville Prison was opened in London, modeled on the Eastern State Penitentiary . Here the multi-level “progressive system” applied: the prisoners only had to go to solitary confinement at the beginning of their sentence, after which they could, depending on their behavior, move up or down three levels of easier detention and, with good conduct, be released earlier.

Michel Foucault located the development of the modern prison between the middle of the 18th and the middle of the 19th century: While in the 18th century it was still common to brutally execute criminals in public, this practice has almost completely disappeared only a century later. It has been replaced by a complex, systematic and total prison system that hides the delinquents and their suffering from the public. "The punishment has gradually ceased to be a drama," states Foucault for the early 19th century.

Development in Germany

In Prussia, after the introduction of the Prussian Land Law in 1794, corporal punishment was largely replaced by imprisonment. In 1804, stimulated by developments in England and the USA, the Prussian Ministry of Justice drafted the “General Plan for the Introduction of a Better Criminal Court Constitution and the Improvement of Prisons and Penal Institutions”. This was based on the following basic principles:

  • Differentiation between improvable criminals and incorrigible criminals
  • Separation of remand and criminal detention
  • first approaches to a gradual prison system
  • Emphasis on the idea of ​​upbringing and improvement
  • Work as the preferred method of parenting
  • Post discharge support

At the beginning of the 19th century, the first private prison societies and prison welfare associations emerged, for example Theodor Fliedner's "Rhenish-Westphalian Prison Society" . These mostly religiously motivated societies should provide prisoners and those released with training opportunities and religious renewal.

After the unification of the empire, the Imperial Criminal Code came into force in 1871 , providing for four types of detention:

  • Prison with compulsory labor (1 year to life sentence)
  • Prison with right to work (1 day to 5 years)
  • Fortress imprisonment
  • Workhouse for vagrancy, drunkenness, work shyness, commercial fornication (up to 2 years)

The fortress detention was a pre-existing prison term for members of the upper classes: politicians, officers and nobles who were guilty of a wrongdoing were in part detained in guarded rooms that could be quite comfortable.

The prison system was scientifically examined in the 19th century by, among others, the Hamburg doctor Nikolaus Julius , who gave lectures in the 1840s on the subject of "Prison Studies or Improving Prisons". The legal scholar Franz von Liszt spoke out in favor of a gradual detention system and distinguished three main goals of prisons ("Marburg Program" from 1882):

  • Improvement of offenders, the correctional capable and - willingly are
  • Deterrence of offenders who are not correctional willingly are.
  • Custody of offenders who are not correctional capable are

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

In 1923 the states of the Weimar Republic agreed in the principles of the Reichsrat that the execution of sentences should no longer be subject to deterrence and retaliation. Darkness and beatings as a means of discipline were abolished. The prisoners were classified and the sentence was implemented gradually.

This development was suddenly reversed when the National Socialists took power in 1933 : Now the penal system was again primarily oriented towards retaliation and deterrence. The prisons filled up, among other things, because of several tightening of the criminal law and the introduction of new criminal offenses. As fines decreased, prison terms increased, and the death penalty increased significantly. Concentration camps developed parallel to the regular prison system, but the boundaries between the two systems became more and more blurred in the course of Nazi rule. Above all against political prisoners there was arbitrariness.

Post-war to the present

Post-war prisons were often overcrowded and the staff unskilled. With the introduction of the Basic Law in 1949, the death penalty was abolished in the FRG. In 1957 the suspended sentence was introduced. Until 1977 the execution of sentences in the Federal Republic was only regulated by administrative regulations. This changed with the Prison Act (StVollzG), which came into force in 1977: Prisons were now primarily intended to serve social rehabilitation , which is why life in prison should be largely aligned with living conditions outside the prison. In addition, the harmful effects of imprisonment should be reduced.

Especially with regard to the idea of ​​rehabilitation, there are currently various forms of mitigated prison sentences and open prison sentences : In the latter, prisoners only spend the night in prison and can go to their families and work during the day. In this way the inmate remains socially involved. Another variant is the “leisure penalty”, which is used in Switzerland and the Netherlands: It stipulates that prisoners only have to go to prison on weekends.

The Swiss lawyer Benjamin F. Brägger sees a humanization of the penal system from the Middle Ages to the present, which has not yet been concluded: “Just as the imprisonment once pushed back the death and corporal punishments, we are in a phase in which new ones are becoming more and more frequent , non-custodial sanctions restrict the use of custodial sentences, even suppress them. The charitable work, the electronically monitored house arrest or the criminal procedural mediation should only be briefly mentioned here. "

Construction of prisons

A prison is usually a building that is surrounded by a secured high wall or fence. Inside the wall there are one or more cell sections in which the prisoners are housed. The windows of the cells are barred when the prison is closed, but possibly not barred in the open prison. As a rule, the inmates are housed in solitary confinement rooms; see also penal colony . The most common types of prisons are the comb construction and the cross construction . These designs are particularly suitable for separating different prisoners, for example prisoners on trial and prisoners .

The structure of prisons has changed significantly throughout history. Originally, prisons looked more like dungeons and cold, smelly basements than they do with today's buildings.

Interior view of the historic Presidio Modelo on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud

The Panopticon or Bentham design, which was created in England at the end of the 18th century, should be emphasized . The main component of this idea was that all cells are arranged in a circle and that each cell can be viewed from a central point (see illustration). This allows a small number of correctional officers to supervise as large a number of inmates as possible. This gives the prisoners the feeling that they are being constantly monitored - because the person in charge only needs to turn around to watch another person. The relationship between effectively exercised control and self-control of the prisoners is particularly favorable.

This construction, although originally designed for the supervision of factory workers, should have been used for the first time in a prison structure in 1811. The project was canceled, but the Panopticon idea influenced some prison buildings of the Victorian era. A modification of the principle was that all corridors running in a star shape can be seen from a central point.

The Pentonville Prison in London shows the characteristics of a Panopticon-making.

A special design was the carousel prison , where one entrance led alternately to several cells.

In modern penal institutions equipped with motion detectors and surveillance cameras, these direct optical control options only play a subordinate role. Since the Penal Services Act came into force in 1977, the structural subdivision of an institution into individual, closed departments has been seen as more sensible, as this enables better spatial separation and differentiated treatment of the different groups of prisoners.

A special type of prison are prison ships. These exist or existed primarily in Great Britain and the USA. They can either be firmly moored in a port or up to several kilometers off the coast of the respective country. Prison ships are now seen by some states as an inexpensive alternative to relieve overcrowded prisons. They are built according to military standards and, for example, have particularly stable steel walls throughout the ship. In addition, in contrast to conventional prisons, special regulations apply, as fires or riots, for example, can have devastating consequences.

everyday life

Inner prison courtyard in Tongeren
Lessons from other prisoners in Kenya

Prisons serve - in addition to the pre-trial detention, various types of civil confinement, administrative detention and deportation - the enforcement of the imprisonment : prisoners are not allowed to leave the prison buildings, their motion freedom is limited. This means that a stay in prison is not a waiver of (modest) comfort , but the compulsion to stay in the prison building for a certain period of time. Inside the prison, the prisoner is subject to what is known as being restricted to a place: he has to follow the instructions of the staff with regard to his whereabouts.

Depending on the country and individual restrictions, it is common for inmates to be given the opportunity to play and play sports in their free time. Televisions in the detention rooms are now the rule, as long as the prisoner can afford to buy them. Very few prisoners have access to computers or the Internet. Whether prisoners should be allowed access to the Internet (and to what extent) is discussed again and again, as this could contribute to rehabilitation. At the same time, there are concerns that criminal activities could take place over the Internet and that Internet access is incompatible with the idea of ​​imprisonment. In 2016 the application for the pilot project “Rehabilitation through digitization” was submitted to the Berlin Legal Committee. On January 18, 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that denying information online for educational purposes was a violation of freedom of information. The trigger for this was the lawsuit of a Lithuanian prisoner who wanted to find out more about further training opportunities on the Internet, but was refused to do so. According to the ECtHR, however, prison inmates could not derive a general right to internet access from the judgment.

The purchase of newspapers and magazines is permitted (Section 68 StVollZG). There are also prison libraries and other ways to pass the time.

In some countries, such as B. Austria, there is the possibility for the prisoners in the closed prison system to meet their partner in a private atmosphere.

It is true that the penitentiary has since been abolished, where the prisoners were forced to do hard physical labor (e.g. quarrying, cutting peat); the prisoners are, however, obliged to work (Germany: Section 41 of the Prison Act ): work is a central element of modern treatment. In Germany this applies as soon as the prisoner is in prison. Refusal to work is therefore subject to disciplinary sanctions. Young prisoners are generally obliged to work for educational reasons. Many prisoners work in the establishment's own businesses, such as the laundry , tailoring, in workshops on the prison grounds, as cleaners , in the bakery or in the facility's kitchen to earn money. According to JVollzGB, the prisoner can freely dispose of part of his wages (in Germany 3/7, the so-called house money ) ( e.g. for purchases in the prison kiosk , for cigarettes, for example), another part (in Germany 4/7, bridging allowance ) serve as a reserve for the time after the discharge, but can also be used to a certain extent to repay debt. Extra money can be paid in by outsiders up to a certain amount and with restrictions on use for the prisoner. Similar regulations apply in Austria and Switzerland .

Inner door ( Tongeren in Belgium)

The remuneration is granted in five levels according to the prisoner's performance and the type of work in accordance with the prison remuneration system. The average hourly earnings of a prisoner in 2005 were around € 1.35.

A common daily routine looks something like this:

  • 6:00 a.m .: awakening and opening up, serving of breakfast food
  • 7:00 a.m .: move out for work, work by arrangement
  • 12:00 pm: Lunch, then more work
  • 4 p.m .: free time ( courtyard walk , sports and leisure groups, changeover )
  • 6:00 p.m .: dinner
  • 9:00 p.m .: confinement ( prison language : Pop Shop )

This daily routine can vary from institution to institution (for example later unlocking and / or inclusion at 4:00 p.m.).

The prison procedures are highly standardized and bureaucratically determined. For example, the prisoners must submit an application on a routing slip if they want to leave the floor within the prison. Requests must be submitted in writing in the form of a report slip. In the Mannheim JVA , for example, there are 100,000 routing slips and 150,000 report slips for around 900 prisoners.

Legal objection options are often difficult for prisoners. For example, judgments won in penal matters in favor of a prisoner are sometimes ignored by prison authorities, which has been criticized several times by the Federal Constitutional Court in Bavaria , for example . Since these are not isolated cases, criminologists speak of “recalcitrant law enforcement agencies”.

Note: For basic information about the course of a prison sentence from admission to release see Prison System .

Prison types

A US Marshal from JPATS during a prisoner transport by plane

Prisons are not only institutions that are shielded from the outside world, but also prison camps, prison islands, vehicles, e.g. B. Airplanes and prison ships used for transporting prisoners . There are also detention cells in many courts and police stations around the world.

Germany

German police detention cell
Collection cells in Signal-Iduna-Park in Dortmund. There are separate cells for each fan block.

In Germany there are open, closed and half-open prisons. The prisons, which are also known to the general public, are mostly institutions of closed execution. The prisoners, who are placed in specially secured prisons which are structurally separated from the outside world, are usually in the facility around the clock. In semi-detention, the open prison, on the other hand, prisoners are allowed to leave the facility during the day in order to do regular work. Only those prisoners who meet the special requirements of this type of detention are eligible for open execution.

The German Prison Act (e) provide for a separation of adults and adolescents , women and men as well as prisoners and prisoners on remand or persons in preventive detention , in some cases also differentiations going beyond this. Another important classification is based on the length of the sentence. There are social therapeutic institutions for offenders who have committed sexual or other violent crimes . In a therapeutic setting, much more intensive and varied treatment options are made available than in normal penal systems: group and individual psychotherapy, crime-oriented groups, social learning in residential groups, creative work as well as school lift and, if necessary, vocational training should enable appropriately motivated prisoners to to work intensively on their problems in order to prevent further crimes.

Mentally ill or addicted offenders under certain circumstances in the forensic unit housed.

Meanwhile, in many federal states there are also special wards or residential groups for the growing number of older prisoners (JVA Singen, JVA Detmold, JVA Schwalmstadt, JVA Waldheim).

Police Prisons German police forces are presented and usually only a stopover to the prisoners before a judge or other authorities of a prison or a closed facility supplied are.

A special feature is the prisoner collection point ( GeS or Gesa ). The GeS is set up when it is to be expected that regular detention places will no longer be sufficient. This is e.g. B. the case at large events , large-scale demonstrations or demonstrations with a high proportion of interferers . These are mostly special rooms such as stadiums , containers, buses or, if necessary, a secured outdoor assembly point ( enclosure ).

Historical prison types

Working stock , correctional also called Detention institution or reformatory, imprisonment , prison island , prison ship , hexene tower , dungeon , lockup , dungeon , the concentration camp , Schuldturm , Strafgefangenenlager in time Nazi (a KZ-form), prison .

Fictional prisons

Many fictional prisons have established themselves in film and leisure culture. These include the Litchfield women's prison from the cult series Orange is the New Black , Azkaban from the Harry Potter book series and the Alcatraz- inspired Escape Room Bâlecatraz.

Known prisons

Germany

Austria

Switzerland

France

England

Northern Ireland

United States

Worldwide

Secret prisons

Secret prisons ( English 'black jails') are prisons that are kept secret from the public and are operated by governmental and non-governmental organizations. These prisons usually only accommodate a few prisoners for a few months.

  • In November 2009, it became known that there are secret prisons in China where Chinese local and provincial authorities are imprisoning people to prevent them from petitioning .
  • In the course of the war on terror , so-called black sites , secret prisons operated by the US military outside the United States, emerged.

statistics

Number of prisoners per 100,000 population
country number
United States 751
Russia 713
Turkmenistan 534 (2009)
Belize 487
Cuba 487 ( 2003 )
American Samoa (to USA ) 446 (2004)
Belarus 426
Puerto Rico (to USA ) 356
Ukraine 356
Singapore 350
Kazakhstan 348 (2009)
South Africa 335
Estonia 333
French Guiana 315
Latvia 292
United Arab Emirates 288 (2004)
Mongolia 269
Taiwan 259
Thailand 256
Chile 240
Lithuania 240
Poland 234
Libya 217
Iran 212
Israel 209
Mexico 196
Brazil 191
New Zealand 186
Czech Republic 185
Luxembourg 167
Romania 164
United Kingdom 148
Spain 145
Australia 126
Portugal 121
People's Republic of China 119
Canada 107
Austria 105
Serbia 104
Italy 104
Germany 91
Belgium 91
Turkey 91
Greece 90
France 85
Switzerland 83
Netherlands 73
Kiribati 72
Ireland 72
Sweden 64
Denmark 61
Pakistan 57
Syria 58 (2004)
Japan 37
India 30 (2004)
Nigeria 30th
Iceland 29
Faroe Islands 15th

As of September 30, 2019, 63,851 people (3,827 women) were imprisoned in almost 180 correctional facilities in Germany. Of this was (of which female 727) to the 13,050 people remand completed. 3,536 people (148 of them female) served a youth sentence . 45,244 were serving a prison sentence (of which 2,856 female) - including 4,616 people (437 female) a custodial sentence . Preventive detention was imposed on 574 people (including 1 female) , 122 people (including 6 female) were in custody for deportation .

While in the 1990s there was a significant increase in the number of prison sentences and thus also the number of prisoners, these have been falling since the mid-2000s (with the exception of the substitute prison sentence).

The table is based on the publication World Prison Population List (seventh edition), by the "International Center for Prison Studies" (International Center for Prison Studies) of King's College in London was issued. The figures come from the period from 2005 to 2007. If values ​​differ from these or are taken from another source, this is indicated. According to the cited publication, the global average is just under 148 prisoners per 100,000 nationals. The list contains only a selection of all values ​​available in the publication. Countries that have the same comparative value are named in alphabetical order.

criticism

Prisons are often criticized from a humanitarian point of view, according to a study by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony that 25 percent of the adult inmates surveyed are victims of violence by fellow inmates at least once a month. Again and again, critics state that, paradoxically, law -free spaces are formed, especially in large prisons , where violence, rape, drug trafficking and theft are the order of the day.

In prisons, the probability of being infected with infectious diseases such as hepatitis or HIV is higher than in freedom (e.g. by exchanging heroin syringes, tattoos, piercing, etc.). About every sixth prisoner in Germany has hepatitis C , every hundredth has HIV . Medical care in German prisons fluctuates from state to state: in 2015, only 45 percent of prisoners in Bavarian prisons who suffered from an addictive disease received substitution treatment (e.g. with methadone ). In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the Swabian JVA Kaisheim: Here a man who had been addicted to heroin for over 40 years was refused substitution therapy with methadone by the prison doctor. The ECHR assessed this as a violation of human rights.

The prison system as such is repeatedly accused of being inefficient and too expensive and of failing to fulfill its mandate to rehabilitate perpetrators and reintegrate them into society. In Germany, the costs per prisoner are 35,770 euros a year (as of 2003).

In their book “Punishment and Social Structure”, published in 1939, Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer Prison subjected to a Marxist criticism; For them, penal system and imprisonment represent a form of domination by one class over another. The analysis of the French philosopher Michel Foucault is prominent , who in “ Monitoring and Punishing ” not only addresses the inefficiency of prisons, but also their effect on power structures indicates within society. Foucault was also a member of the Groupe d'information sur les prisons, GIP (Prison Information Group), which campaigned to make the conditions in French prisons public. Particularly in the 1970s, left activists also called for the abolition of prisons . The organization Critical Resistance, which was co-founded by civil rights activist Angela Davis , campaigns primarily for the rights of prisoners in the United States and coined the term "prison industrial complex" (based on the military-industrial complex ). In Germany, the “Entknastung” initiative is committed to counteracting abuses in prisons and organizes conferences on prison criticism.

A frequently expressed criticism is that people who are arrested for relatively harmless crimes only really come into contact with the criminal milieu in prison: “Young people in particular are often turned into criminals in prison - and thus into an even bigger one Problem for society, ”said lawyer and penal expert Bernd Maelicke . In addition, the social stigmata of the prison sentence makes it difficult for many released people to find their way back to a regular, civil existence. Maelicke criticizes the fact that after their release from prison, convicts often get back into the same social structures that would have brought them to prison: "... the emergency for rehabilitation is the time after release". According to a study by the Federal Ministry of Justice in 2014, an average of 34 percent of all released prisoners re-offend within three years of being convicted or released, the recidivism rate is 44 percent within six years, and significantly higher after juvenile prisoners. There is also a connection between prison and poverty: those who cannot pay their fine for a crime they have committed can be punished with imprisonment instead with the alternative prison sentence. The journalist Martin Klingst described prisons as "schools of crime". The criminal sociologist Edwin M. Lemert coined the term “ secondary deviance ”: According to this, delinquents are forced into the role of criminals by punitive measures, as their self-image changes in this way through the experiences of the prison system.

In the book Die Schwere der Schuld (The Gravity of Guilt) , published in 2016, the former prison director Thomas Galli questions the usefulness of penal institutions (see abolitionism ). He believes that prison sentences can make criminals even more dangerous and that many prisons should be closed and other punitive measures such as community service should be used instead. This means that there are more resources and staff to deal with the really dangerous criminals.

The US prison system is particularly criticized: The US has the most prison inmates in the world in relation to its population, which is in part due to the privatization of many prisons. In 2016, the US administration under Barack Obama decided to gradually close the private prisons. In addition, the prisons would reflect the racism of the security authorities and courts, since a disproportionate proportion of the inmates are African American and Hispanic.

Cultural reception

Prisons have long fascinated writers, artists and filmmakers, on the one hand because of the dramatic and gloomy setting of the prison itself, on the other hand because of the individual fates that take place here. Alexandre Dumas described in 1844 in The Count of Monte Christo how an innocent man is imprisoned in the fortress of Château d'If off the French coast. Another notorious prison, Newgate Prison in London , plays an important role in several novels, including Daniel Defoe's Fortune and Unhappiness of the famous Moll Flanders (1722), in Charles Dickens' works Oliver Twist (1839), Barnaby Rudge ( 1841) and Great Expectations (1861) and in Michael Crichton's novel The Great Train Robbery (1975). In 1919 Franz Kafka described an absurdly cruel prison camp on an island in In der Strafkolonie .

The Tour of the Prisoners (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

London's Fleet Prison not only served Charles Dickens as one of the settings for The Pickwickier (1837), but was also depicted by William Hogarth in his series of engravings, A Rake's Progress , in 1735 . It was again Newgate that Gustave Doré used as a template for his copperplate engraving of the prison yard there, which inspired Vincent van Gogh for his painting The Tour of the Prisoners in 1889 .

In literary terms, prison experiences have been and are dealt with, especially in prison literature: These include works that their authors wrote during imprisonment, such as The Archipelago Gulag (1974) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn or Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky's Notes from a House of the Dead (1861). On the other hand, prison literature also includes works that were created in prison but are not about them (e.g. Don Quixote ).

Prisons are a popular subject in films in particular (see prison film ), for example in Broken Chains or The Unyielding . There are several films about the prison island Alcatraz alone. Various books that are set in prisons were later successfully made into films (e.g. Papillon or The Green Mile ). Several television series are set in prisons, for example Orange Is The New Black , Prison Break or Behind Bars - Der Frauenknast .

Many pop and rock songs deal with prisons from different perspectives: Elvis Presley sang about a fictional band in a prison in his millionaire hit Jailhouse Rock , both Thin Lizzy and AC / DC each released a successful single called Jailbreak . The song I Shall Be Released , written by Bob Dylan and published by The Band , portrays an inmate's hope of freedom. Dylan later wrote the song Hurricane about the wrongly imprisoned Rubin Carter . Sam Cooke had a hit in 1960 with his song Chain Gang : In it he described the phenomenon of chain gangs , prisoners who were chained to one another and had to do work such as building roads in public. Johnny Cash caused a sensation in the 1960s with some live concerts in American prisons, where the audience consisted primarily of the inmates and guards. These concerts were documented in the very successful live albums At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin . Even Metallica used the San Quentin State Prison as a backdrop and took there, the music video for the song St. Anger on. In hip-hop, including gangster rap , prisons and prison sentences play a role again and again, for example in Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos by Public Enemy , One Love by Nas or Murder Was The Case by Snoop Dogg .

The first part of the computer game series Gothic (based on a comic of the same name) takes place in a fantasy world in which convicts are banished to a huge open-air prison, which is separated from the outside world by a magical barrier. Especially in fantasy role-playing games , prisons or dungeons are an omnipresent scenario (for example in Dungeons & Dragons ).

privatization

The Hünfeld correctional facility in East Hessen is the first partially privatized prison in the Federal Republic of Germany. Only officials are active there as overseers, as only they are authorized to exert "direct coercion" on the prisoners if necessary. In this sense, the JVA Büren , which has since been subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior as a detention center, has also been partially privatized .

Outsourcing

The UK estimated around £ 35,000 in 2018 costs for each prisoner per year. To reduce costs, the state signed contracts with nations that generated significant numbers of convicted criminals in Great Britain, under which the British financed prisons in these countries and in return the prisoners from their own prisons in the prisons of their respective home countries Serving sentences. The Kingdom concluded such agreements in 2018 with Albania , Jamaica , Libya , Nigeria , and Rwanda . In the Nigerian case, the estimated £ 700,000 for a 112-bed prison wing.

See also

literature

Documentaries

Web links

Commons : Prisons  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: prison  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikiquote: Prison  Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art 2 Paragraph 1 of the Explanatory Report on the European Convention against Torture
  2. ↑ On the special function of workhouses in the 19th and 20th centuries, cf. Wolfgang Ayaß : The work house in Breitenau. Beggars, vagrants, prostitutes, pimps and welfare recipients in the correctional and rural poor institution in Breitenau (1874–1949). , Kassel 1992.
  3. ↑ Complete German dictionary, limited preview in the Google book search
  4. ↑ Adelung, Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect, Volume 1. Leipzig 1793, p. 1281
  5. ^ A b Benjamin F. Brägger: Imprisonment: Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow. (PDF) In: avenirsocial.ch. Avenirsocial, accessed December 27, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b The prison in antiquity and the Middle Ages. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  7. ↑ Acts 24 : 23-27  EU
  8. ↑ Eusebius of Caesarea († around 340): Church history (Historia Ecclesiastica) .
  9. ↑ a b c Behind lock and bolt - prisons in Mainz. In: regionalgeschichte.net. Retrieved December 27, 2016 .
  10. ^ Criminal sentences in the 15th and 16th centuries. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  11. ↑ The Amsterdam prison from 1596. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  12. ↑ a b c d Bärbel Heidenreich, Andrea Böhnke: Prison: History of the prison sentence - crime - society . November 8, 2016 ( planet-wissen.de [accessed December 27, 2016]).
  13. ↑ a b Boom in the prison in the 16th century. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  14. ↑ Michael Kilchling: Lecture Prison Law: Historical Development of the Prison and the Imprisonment. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: mpicc.de. Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, archived from the original on December 28, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mpicc.de
  15. ^ John Howard (1726-1791). (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  16. ↑ Michael Kilchling: Lecture Prison Law: Historical Development of the Prison and the Imprisonment. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: mpicc.de. Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, archived from the original on December 28, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mpicc.de
  17. ↑ Timeline | Eastern State Penitentiary. (No longer available online.) In: easternstate.org. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.easternstate.org
  18. ^ A b Reforms in the 19th century. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  19. ↑ Michel Foucault: Monitoring and punishing. The birth of the prison . 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 14 .
  20. ↑ Michel Foucault: Monitoring and punishing. The birth of the prison . 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 16 .
  21. ↑ The Imperial Criminal Code of 1871. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  22. ↑ Michael Kilchling: Lecture on penal law: historical development of the prison and the imprisonment. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: mpicc.de. Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, archived from the original on December 28, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mpicc.de
  23. ^ Execution of sentences during the Third Reich. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  24. ↑ StVollzG - single standard. In: gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved December 27, 2016 .
  25. ^ The penal enforcement law of 1976. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  26. ↑ Modern tendencies in the penal system. (No longer available online.) In: knast.net. Archived from the original on December 27, 2016 ; accessed on December 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.knast.net
  27. ↑ Internet in prison - a human right? In: heise online . Retrieved January 18, 2017 .
  28. ↑ Pilot project in Berlin: A little network in jail. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved January 18, 2017 .
  29. ↑ Freedom of information: Lithuanians are allowed to use the Internet in prison . In: sueddeutsche.de . ISSN  0174-4917 ( online [accessed January 18, 2017]).
  30. ↑ special interest day "aging in prisons" in Berlin. 2016, accessed February 15, 2018 .
  31. ↑ Marion Maier: The prison opens its doors. Trierischer Volksfreund, September 4, 2009, accessed on August 30, 2013 .
  32. ↑ Dominik Nagl: No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Legal Transfer, State Building and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630–1769. Berlin 2013, p. 166 f. de.scribd.com
  33. ↑ "An Alleyway in Hell" - China's Abusive "Black Jails" . Human Rights Watch
  34. ↑ Statistics USA
  35. ↑ Statistics Turkmenistan ( Memento from April 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  36. ↑ Statistics Kazakhstan ( Memento from April 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ↑ Statistics Poland ( Memento from October 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ↑ Statistics Libya
  39. ↑ Statistics Iran
  40. ↑ Statistics United Kingdom
  41. ↑ Statistics People's Republic of China
  42. ↑ Statistics Germany ( Memento from October 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  43. ^ Statistics France
  44. ↑ Statistics Netherlands
  45. ↑ Statistics Ireland
  46. ↑ 179 according to statista.com , as of November 30, 2018, accessed March 14, 2020
  47. ↑ Destatis: Existence of prisoners and those in custody in German correctional facilities. 2019, accessed March 14, 2020 .
  48. ↑ Wolfgang Heinz: Crime and crime control in Germany - 2015 reporting status at a glance. 2017, accessed February 15, 2018 .
  49. ↑ world-prison-pop-seventh ( Memento from February 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ; PDF)
  50. ↑ Experiences of victimization in the penal system. ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2012 study by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony In: kfn.de. (PDF). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kfn.de
  51. ↑ a b "The Disgraceful Institution" . In: Die Zeit , No. 34/2012.
  52. ↑ 4. Alternative Drugs and Addiction Report 2017. (PDF) Accept e. V., 2017, SS 61 , accessed on June 1, 2017 .
  53. ^ European Court of Justice: "Inhuman treatment in Bavarian prison". In: Welt Online . Retrieved June 1, 2017 .
  54. ^ European Court of Justice: "Inhuman treatment in Bavarian prison". In: Welt Online . Retrieved June 1, 2017 .
  55. ^ European Court of Justice: "Inhuman treatment in Bavarian prison". In: Welt Online . Retrieved June 1, 2017 .
  56. ↑ Horst Entorf: Evaluation of the penal system: Basics of a cost-benefit analysis.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics, 183, 2007, tu-darmstadt.de@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.download.tu-darmstadt.de  
  57. ^ Critical Resistance website
  58. ↑ website of Entknastung. In: entknastung.org.
  59. ↑ Made into criminals ( Memento of the original from September 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Die Zeit magazine , No. 11/2014; interview @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  60. ↑ Legal probation after criminal sanctions 2007 to 2010 and 2004 to 2010. ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ; PDF) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: bmj.de. January 14, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmj.de
  61. ↑ Frank Wilde: The prison as a poor house . In: WestEnd. New journal for social research . No. 2 . Campus, Frankfurt 2017, p. 111–124 ( researchgate.net [accessed January 8, 2020]).
  62. ↑ Martin Klingst: Locking up is expensive and pointless In: zeit.de. Die Zeit, April 11, 2002 (XML).
  63. ↑ Locking up makes offenders more dangerous. In: Mittelbayerische.de. Mittelbayerische Zeitung , accessed April 4, 2016 .
  64. ↑ "We are fixated on punishing" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2016 ( online - Spiegel interview with prison director Thomas Galli, who advocates abolishing prisons).
  65. ↑ US government abolishes controversial private prisons. Deutsche Welle , August 18, 2016, accessed December 29, 2016 .
  66. ^ Newgate Exercise yard by Gustave Dore, from London: A pilgrimage by Gustave Dore and Blanchard Jerrold 1872
  67. ↑ Peter Stubley: UK to spend £ 700,000 building new wing on notorious Nigerian prison to house foreign criminals The Independent, March 8, 2018
  68. ↑ Pop Shop review notes. Conversations with young people in custody at perlentaucher.de
  69. ↑ Sebastian Trautmann: Book review Klaus Jünschke (Ed.): Pop Shop: inclusion until the next cover. Young people in custody tell. In: Zeitschrift für Jugendkriminalrecht und Jugendhilfe 3/2007, p. 319; aidshilfen.de (PDF)