Summary:
This study attempts to critique the institution of prison capturing the causes that have contributed to its amazing durability, since, despite it being under fire since it first appeared, it has managed to not only survive, but dominate the penal and criminal reality of modern Western states. Initially, the different role that prison played in important historical periods of human evolution is presented, and the catalytic factors responsible for the emergence of prison in a modern corrective sense are analyzed. A critique of the institution of prison follows, first in the form of the disadvantages of custodial sentencing, then in relation to its declared purposes before concluding with the presentation of the abolitionist movement. We then outline the factors that we believe form the response to the "prison enigma", including the ideology of prison, the theory of the risk society, the managerial tendency regarding the confrontation of the criminal phenomenon, and the shift towards punitiveness. Finally, the differentiation of the criminal phenomenon between the legal classes is pointed out, while the need for social and scientific vigilance about the thorny and pathogenic issue of imprisonment and for the protection of the rights of those incarcerated is underpinned.
Other subject categories:
Criminal Law
Criminology /Penology (Criminology -Corrections, Criminalistics)