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Against Prisons: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen
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Prisons had been invented, among other things, to safeguard the rights of convicts to be kept alive and to be respected as human beings even though they were serving a criminal sentence. In our time, the concept of human rights has been enlarged considerably if compared with the situation at the end of the 18th century. If the prison did not exist and if in today's societies we would have to invent a standard response to crime - would chances be that we would end up inventing the prisons? We doubt it. And the reasons are twofold. For one thing, the very institutional design of prisons denies inmates essential human rights. And secondly, the very situational variables governing prison life are conducive to abuses of power and helpless misery. | Prisons had been invented, among other things, to safeguard the rights of convicts to be kept alive and to be respected as human beings even though they were serving a criminal sentence. In our time, the concept of human rights has been enlarged considerably if compared with the situation at the end of the 18th century. If the prison did not exist and if in today's societies we would have to invent a standard response to crime - would chances be that we would end up inventing the prisons? We doubt it. And the reasons are twofold. For one thing, the very institutional design of prisons denies inmates essential human rights. And secondly, the very situational variables governing prison life are conducive to abuses of power and helpless misery. | ||
Ideally, imprisonment deprives the convict of his or her freedom of movement, but nothing else. It leaves the person intact and leaves him or her all the rest of human, civil and social rights as guaranteed in national constitutions and international conventions - with the sole exception, of course, of being confined to a restricted area (the prison), because that is the very idea of the prison sentence: to single out the freedom of movement as the one freedom that the culprit has to to without for the time of his punishment. Notabene: The idea of imprisonment is not to drive the culprit into desperation, deprivation, and destruction, but to teach him or her a lesson by restricting the freedom of movement. | Ideally, imprisonment deprives the convict of his or her freedom of movement, but nothing else (cf. European Prison Rules 102.2). It leaves the person intact and leaves him or her all the rest of human, civil and social rights as guaranteed in national constitutions and international conventions - with the sole exception, of course, of being confined to a restricted area (the prison), because that is the very idea of the prison sentence: to single out the freedom of movement as the one freedom that the culprit has to to without for the time of his punishment. Notabene: The idea of imprisonment is not to drive the culprit into desperation, deprivation, and destruction, but to teach him or her a lesson by restricting the freedom of movement. | ||
Sadly, though, this limitation is not at all reflected in the very organization imprisonment. Much to the contrary, the prison still displays features of its pre-constitutional past that make it hard to believe that it can ever develop into a constitutional sanction that could be recognized as being in line with the most fundamental values of a free and democratic society under the rule of law. Let it suffice here to point to the following four inherent contradictions of imprisonment: forced labour, imposed poverty, sexual deprivation, and the co-punishment of innocent third parties. | Sadly, though, this limitation is not at all reflected in the very organization imprisonment. Much to the contrary, the prison still displays features of its pre-constitutional past that make it hard to believe that it can ever develop into a constitutional sanction that could be recognized as being in line with the most fundamental values of a free and democratic society under the rule of law. Let it suffice here to point to the following four inherent contradictions of imprisonment: forced labour, imposed poverty, sexual deprivation, and the co-punishment of innocent third parties. | ||