Imprisonment: The rehabilitation issue Available to Purchase

Punishment is the oldest and the most common means of sanctioning crimes, being the main coercion instrument used in all societies, which aims both to isolate the delinquent individual in specialized detention institutions and to re-educate and resocialize him with the help of treatment and social recovery programs. Émile Durkheim argued that the sanctioning of perpetrators has a salutary effect at the community level, by reaffirming the collective conscience, the criminal punishment being applied, therefore, in the name of society. The opinion of the famous French sociologist summarizes the trend of evolution and adjustment of correctional systems, in order to respond to the transformation needs registered internationally. He drew attention to the fact that the intensity and severity of the punishments are even harsher, as societies are less developed and in which the central power has a more absolute character (…) and that, in certain periods, depending on the severity of the committed crimes, custodial sentences tend to become the normal type of repression against criminal individuals. The responsibilities of the penitentiary institutions are considerable. Goffman said the penitentiary was a place where a large number of individuals of similar statuses, separated from the rest of the society for a considerable amount of time and, together, are living a life led by strict limitations, officially regulated by the institution. As imprisonment only represents one part of the act of justice - the execution of the sentence with deprivation of liberty - the study includes an approach to the prison infrastructure based on respect towards the human rights. Starting from the international standards in the field and the regulation of the minimum living standards for deprivation of liberty institutions in the European space, this paper identifies the problems faced by most penitentiary systems, but also the global trends. It addresses the relationship between the architecture of the prison and the criminal ideology of some European states, as well as how these punitive constructions contribute to the rehabilitation and reduction of recidivism. The study, which involves both national and European systems, provides a multicriterial understanding of the existing state of the detention units by selecting criminal systems from some countries in our geographic area with comparable levels of socio-economic development to Romania. Therefore, starting from the main objectives of the criminal system (to protect society, to punish criminal behavior and to prevent new criminal acts) in relation to the fundamental human rights, as well as the degree of success in the rehabilitation of the prisoners, the paperwork explores how the different ideologies related to punishment are reflected in the architecture and the layouts of the prisons and makes an analysis of the trends in the contemporary prison architecture. The study emphasizes a discrepancy between the functional aim of the contemporary penitentiary institution (as described by the rules and by the authorities) and the actual situation identified in many reports of the national and international bodies, finding that, at least in Europe, there are only a few prisons that are changing their approaches in terms of human rights based on their legal framework.