History of prisons

The paper describes two biological presences in Western Australia which appear to derive from Madagascar, elephant bird eggs and boabs [i.e. baobabs]. These have been described as consequences of oceanic drift, but this is an implausible scenario. The paper argues these are a consequence of early Austronesian maritime voyages

Global governance operates through carceral logics and practices.This paper explores the International Criminal Court (ICC) and theRegional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI)through abolitionist literature to show how these ostensibly unrelated modes of global governance converge through carcerality. Using a reflective methodological approach informed by abolition feminism, we advance three interrelated arguments.First, that the carceral, and penal logics of the ICC and RAMSI, construct colonial histories as distant and forgotten. This results in the refashioning of violent and oppressive colonial practices. Next, we argue that, both the ICC and RAMSI demarcate these practices as common sense. They naturalise punishment and discipline, equating (colonial, Western) law with ‘order’ which further proliferates carceral logics and solidifies carceral practices. Finally, our exploration of history and ‘order’ shows how these modes of global governance are entangled with the (racist and colonial)systems of neoliberalism and capitalism. Our exploration of history and ‘order’ shows how these modes of global governance are entangled with the (racist and colonial) systems of neoliberalism and capitalism. We contend that global governance is constituted by, and constitutive of, carcerality within both domestic and international systems. By uncovering these interrelated arguments, and their implications for state-building and ‘justice’, we reiterate the importance of mapping carcerality throughout global governance, using collective reflection to do so.

Диссертация посвящена реформированию пенитенциарной системы в Советской России в 1918-1930 гг. После революции 1917 г. большевики провозгласили реформу, которая должна была заменить царские тюрьмы новыми исправительными учреждениями. Хотя риторически советское руководство подчеркивало разрыв с царской традицией и позиционировало свой проект преобразований как альтернативу «капиталистическим» тюремным системам, на практике раннесоветская пенитенциарная реформа продолжала дореволюционные тренды и ориентировалась на международный опыт. Это было связано с тем, что реформа была разработана немарксистскими экспертами, привлеченными к сотрудничеству с новым большевистским режимом.В диссертации рассмотрены основные аспекты реформы: идеология; администрирование и кадры; функционирование основных институтов; роль экспертов и научного знания; образование и труд в местах заключения; причины свертывания реформы в конце 1920-х гг. По крайней мере до 1929 г. советское правительство поддерживало курс на реформирование пенитенциарной системы, предложенный экспертами и проводившийся Главным управлением мест заключения НКВД РСФСР. Однако в условиях «Великого перелома» сталинское руководство сделало ставку на лагерную модель ОГПУ и использование труда заключенных на массовых производствах, что автоматически означало конец тюремной реформы 1920-х гг.Диссертационное исследование основано на широком круге источников, в том числе законодательных и делопроизводственных документах, источниках личного происхождения, материалах периодической печати. В работе впервые в научный оборот вводится ряд источников, в том числе архивных. Данная диссертация вносит вклад в дискуссии о роли экспертного знания в раннесоветский период, а также в исследования по истории пенитенциарных учреждений.

Рассматривается история комитетов помощи заключенным и освобожденным – органов послетю-
ремной реабилитации, организованных в рамках раннесоветской тюремной реформы в 1920-е гг. Комитеты
создавались на губернском уровне и возглавлялись центральным офисом при Главном управлении местами
заключения НКВД РСФСР. Функции этих органов включали как финансовую поддержку освобожденных, так
и организацию производств с их трудоустройством. Изучение деятельности местных комитетов демонстрирует
различные сценарии: если в некоторых случаях комитеты были достаточно успешны (Ленинград, Москва, Сара-
тов и др.), большинство губернских комитетов, при отсутствии регулярного государственного финансирования,
оказалось неспособным организовать помощь освобожденным.

The article concerns the Soviet prison museums that were opened in the 1920s and attached to scientific establishments or places of confinement. Their appearance was connected to the institutionalisation of criminological research at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, and to the growing interest in the ‘criminal world’ and prison culture. Thanks to the Soviet prison reforms of 1918–1930, and the emergence of Soviet criminology, this tendency to collect and exhibit ‘artefacts’ from criminals and convicts received a new ideological framework. The Soviet prison museum was not only a scientific establishment, but had wider aims of education and agitation. Exhibitions in such museums conveyed the ideology of early Soviet prison reform. They stressed the revolutionary and ‘emancipatory’ character of the Soviet prison system, opposing it to ‘repressive’ imperial and capitalist prisons. The artefacts and norms of the prison subculture were presented in the museum exhibitions as attributes of an obsolete ‘prison way of life’ which hindered the ‘re-education’ of prisoners. At the same time, the exhibition of products of prison workshops and the prisoners’ ‘amateur activities’ (newspapers or creative work) were intended to demonstrate the ‘progressive’ character of Soviet places of correctional labour, which reformed criminals by means of work and education. This is the first time that Soviet prison museums have been examined in the historical literature. The research is based on documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and personal archives at the Russian State Library and the National Library of Russia, as well as on published sources (academic publications, articles in newspapers and journals, and museum guidebooks).

В 1920-е годы в местах заключения СССР выпускались десятки
журналов и газет, созданных при участии заключенных. Не-
сомненно, что эти издания представляет сегодня интерес: как
«прямая речь» заключенных, как пример низовой инициативы,
как уникальный эпизод в истории раннесоветской журнали-
стики. Поскольку большинство из них неизвестны широкому
читателю и труднодоступны для исследователей, это издание
ставит своей целью познакомить читателя с феноменом прессы
заключенных 1920-х. В книге публикуются тексты из журнала
Вятского исправительно-трудового дома «За железной решет-
кой» (Вятка, 1923).

The article is devoted to the Soviet prison press and its transformation after Stalin’s Great Break, from 1928 to 1934. The author examines K trudovomu obshchezhitiiu [“To the Laboring Community”], a central prison newspaper of the NKVD (1928-1930) and then the NKIU RSFSR (1931-1934) to show the shift from an earlier reformist and pedagogical paradigm to the discourse of perekovka (re-forging), which considered inmates exclusively from the point of view of labor productivity. The prison press mushroomed in the 1920s as part of the early Soviet penitentiary reform, which aimed to rehabilitate offenders and maintain their sociality. The NKVD prison administration encouraged inmates’ samokritika (self-criticism), which allowed them to condemn the arbitrariness of local authorities and violations of their rights. In the early 1930s, the newspaper’s functions radically changed. It gained control over the prison press throughout the RSFSR, imposed censorship and a unified agenda. From that moment, the newspaper became the center of propaganda and campaigns for mass mobilization of prisoners.

In invoking the “carceral archipelago” in our title to this introduction, our
intention is to provoke as much as pay homage. Michel Foucault coined the
expression in his landmark 1975 text Surveiller et punir (published two years
later in English as Discipline and Punish), drawing on a metaphor from Alek-
sandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago (published in French in 1974), to
describe the interlocking mechanisms, technologies, systems of knowledge, and networks that together make up the modern penal system. In his work, Foucault argued that the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the “birth of the prison” and the emergence of what he called the “punitive society.” Despite the suggestion of islands in the word “archipelago,” Foucault was focused squarely on metropolitan France and made no explicit claim to be presenting a general theory of punishment, yet his interpretations quickly acquired an influence that went far beyond the French case. Fifty years after Discipline and Punish first appeared, Foucault’s interpretative framework continues to influence the development of carceral studies, an interdisciplinary field to which historians contribute crucial insights and challenges.
The five articles offered in this special issue, organized roughly chronologically, attest to the richness, variety, and complexity of an ever-expanding field of inquiry. Significantly, three of our articles wind the clock back to before the nineteenth century, reflective of the broadening of the field of historical carceral studies beyond the modern penitentiary. As several of our contributors suggest and as we ourselves will discuss further in this introductory essay, the prison was not conjured up out of the ether in the eighteenth century. Paying attention to the evolution of practices of confinement over the longue durée is vital if we are to better understand how imprisonment has come to occupy such a dominant position in the contemporary era. As a field of inquiry, the wider history of confinement has been expanding so rapidly and innovatively in recent years that it might well be that “perhaps Foucault’s spell over the field of prison historiography has finally broken,” as Sophie Abdela has suggested.

In the aftermath of austerity measures and in the wake of a right-wing populist wave across the globe, the growing inequalities and diminishing rights endured by women and queer people call for a closer investigation of gender and gender-based violence. The spatial articulation of cities as a materialization of hetero-patriarchal power relations has become an essential place for the struggle against gender-based violence. It, thus, becomes crucial to investigate the challenge posed by feminist groups against these structures by unravelling power structures in public space and shaping solutions to gender-based violence. One crucial yet overlooked aspect is the development of transformative justice perspectives within feminist struggles to create inclusive and non-violent public spaces. Originating from prison abolitionist movements, this concept develops a communitybased approach to justice, understanding the role of structural oppressions in the enactment of violence. Lying at the intersection between feminist geography, abolitionist thought, and social movement studies, this article advances a theoretical contribution to the understanding of collective action. With a comprehensive literature review considering these three strands, this article further investigates the interplay between social movements and justice, arguing for the advantages of incorporating a transformative justice perspective when looking at feminist practices to challenge gender-based violence. The argument is strengthened by exemplary cases of feminist groups adopting abolitionist perspectives and transformative practices. This theoretical work explores the potential of transformative justice in envisioning radical societal changes, as well as showing how this perspective complements feminist visions and repertoires of action. Burchietti

What is ghastly and really almost hopeless in our racial situation now is that the crimes we have committed are so great and so unspeakable that the acceptance of this knowledge would lead, literally, to madness. The human being, then, in order to protect himself, closes his eyes, compulsively repeats his crimes, and enters a spiritual darkness which no one can describe.-James Baldwin

Este trabajo analiza transgresiones y delitos femeninos ocurridos en la Araucanía (Chile) durante los primeros años de la década de 1930 a través de El Diario Austral. La región era un territorio social y culturalmente heterogéneo donde recién se consolidaba la presencia del Estado y los desacatos femeninos fueron objeto de especial preocupación para las autoridades y la prensa local, agentes centrales de un proceso de modernización en marcha. Metodológicamente, la aproximación a las fuentes se realizó desde un enfoque regional y microhistórico, a partir del uso del método indiciario, en consideración al carácter fragmentario y discontinuo de las notas de prensa. El análisis cualitativo del corpus permite observar diversas formas de transgresión femenina, tanto en el plano legal como cultural y el modo en que fueron narradas y representadas

The extant state crime literature does not theorize the legalized production of police impunity within the contemporary carceral state. Building on policing scholarship that has considered the role of law in enabling police impunity, I contend that police are structurally protected by legal provisions. Laws that immunize officers (e.g. qualified immunity) effectively neutralize legalized accountability mechanisms (e.g. civil lawsuits). Thus, this legalized impunity infrastructure produces what I term legalized police impunity. To illustrate this, I develop a theoretical framework using Weber's legal typology to explain why and how police enjoy near absolute impunity. Implications of the legalized production of police impunity are discussed, and future research directions proposed.

This article examines the emergence of the Auburn system and argues that it provided the institutional and intellectual foundation for the development of southern carceral regimes. Rather than interpreting Auburn as a humanitarian reform, the study situates it within a longer history of confinement practices that linked discipline to labor and social control. By consolidating surveillance, enforced silence, and collective labor into a single administrative structure, the Auburn system reorganized punitive violence into a continuous and regulated condition, privileging order, productivity, and institutional authority over meaningful rehabilitation. The analysis traces the diffusion of this model into the American South, demonstrating how states such as Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi adapted its principles to regional conditions shaped by agrarian economies and entrenched racial hierarchies.

In Georgia, early penitentiary systems organized incarceration around regimented labor, supervision, and time discipline, embedding work as the central mechanism of control. In Louisiana, this framework intensified as plantation landscapes were reconfigured into penal institutions, where agricultural labor, spatial isolation, and racial hierarchy structured daily life.

These developments reveal that southern adaptations did not depart from Auburn’s foundational logic but extended and deepened its core principles.
By foregrounding the relationship between discipline and economic extraction, this study argues that the Auburn system endured not because of its reformist claims but because of its flexibility and scalability. Its capacity to integrate with existing systems of domination enabled its expansion across diverse regional contexts, shaping a distinctly southern carceral order. The paper reinterprets the evolution of American penal institutions as a process driven less by reform than by the institutionalization of organized control.

Prisons and prison conditions have been in the headlines of late: overcrowding, high levels of violent behaviour, (il)legal highs, record levels of deaths in custody and staff shortages are all reasons given for why the prison system in England and Wales is currently said to be in crisis. Rather than focus on these negative aspects of prisons, however, this special edition of the PSJ looks at Restorative Justice (RJ) and in particular its use in prisons. While it is currently being used both in and out of prisons in many countries worldwide, for reasons of space, we focus on its recent history and use in England and Wales, New Zealand and Australia. The contributors are all proponents of RJ, but have taken time to reflect on the 'good and the bad', as well as the frustrations experienced in developing what is still an emerging discipline. Recently enshrined in (sentencing) law in at least one country, RJ is increasingly being seen as a necessary and purposeful component of our Criminal justice system(s). In any volume on a particular topic one of the forefront issues is to define exactly what the subject matter is; with this being the role of the first article. As eloquently argued by Masahiro Suzuki and Hennessey Hayes while RJ has become attractive to scholars, policy-makers and practitioners across the globe; there is often confusion over what exactly RJ is and what qualifies as RJ. The authors therefore give us the historical background to RJ and importantly focus on RJ in terms of the concept, its definition and practice. For readers not that familiar with notions of RJ this is a useful introduction to the key literature. The next few articles then focus on the use of RJ in prisons. The first of these articles, written by Gerry Johnstone, provides an overview of RJ in prisons, looking at three approaches. These include victim awareness and responsibility acceptance courses (e.g. the Sycamore Tree programme); victim offender mediation and conferencing; and restorative imprisonment. He argues that the latter is a vision rather than a current practice but could exist where the principles and practices of RJ fully permeate the work of the prison. In terms of a 'restorative prison' Gerry Johnstone looks at how this might be achieved by looking at how RJ principles could influence induction and sentence planning, prison work and the prison and its surrounding community. Also importantly he questions the nature and purpose of imprisonment and suggests that by reforming current prisons using RJ principles, these fundamental questions could finally be answered. 'RJ in prison: a contradiction in terms or a challenge and a reality' looks at the Sycamore Tree project in more detail. Written by Penny Parker, a Sycamore Tree tutor, it details what the programme is, how it works, how offenders are selected, offender experiences, participant feedback, victim involvement including when this occurs and also how this affects the participants. Penny Parker looks at offender responsibility and explains how this is achieved through the programme but importantly details how the programme also looks at their lives going forward. The article also offers some data on whether or not the programme works in terms of reducing reoffending. More evidence is needed but current data appears to be positive. The Sycamore Tree programme is again mentioned in the next article by Kim Workman, which looks at the use and history of RJ in New Zealand Prisons. Tracing the rise and fall of RJ in custodial settings this article provides many case studies where prison conferences have been beneficial to both offender and victim participants. While government funding for direct victim/offender mediation and the Sycamore Tree project was discontinued in 2010, the article nevertheless ends with some optimism for the future, citing the new government policy that requires all New Zealand judges to consider RJ options prior to sentencing. This theme is picked up in an interview later on in the edition with one of these judges who runs one of New Zealand's experimental Drug Courts. The final article on the use of RJ in prisons is written by Kimmet Edgar, Head of Research at the Prison Reform Trust. Rather than focusing on the use of RJ to mediate between offenders and victims, this interesting article looks at how RJ can be used in segregation units and in the management of often violent and disruptive prisoners. Kimmet argues that by using RJ in this environment a sense of responsibility can be instilled in those held in custody which can help with overall behaviour management. By treating offenders with respect and with RJ much more can be achieved than dirty protests and controlled force.

The article focuses on the analysis of the poem Autoportrét v červnu by Stanislav Kostka Neu-mann from the collection Kniha lesů, vod a strání. It analyzes the theme of the transformation of a city man into a natural being who sensually merges with the surrounding landscape. The poem is then compared to the opening verses of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, highlighting thematic and motivic similarities. The fundamental difference, however, is seen in the form: in contrast to Whitman’s free verse, Neumann uses a verse reminiscent of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which corresponds with the central motif of Neumann’s poem – metamorphose.

Based on the experience of innocent individuals who were arrested and sent to the Gulag, this paper examines the transformation from being human to being nonhuman. It suggests that during this process, one shifts from belonging to nonbelonging. As a result, similarly to Winston Smith-Orwell's hero in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the prisoner is rebooted and reborn as an object belonging to the Gulag. In this situation, the prisoner internalizes the Gulag's rules in the deepest possible manner.

Hakekat pengawasan adalah mencegah sedini mungkin terjadinya penyimpangan, pemborosan, penyelewengan, hambatan, kesalahan dan kegagalan dalam pencapaian tujuan dan pelaksanaan tugas-tugas organisasi. Menurut buku sistem Administrasi Negara Republik Indonesia pengawasan dibagi menjadi 4 (empat) jenis.

Sanayi Devrimi ile emek gücüne olan ihtiyacın artması modern devleti
harekete geçirmiş ve nüfusu kontrol etmek için kuşatıcı bir kontrol
mekanizması olmaya yönlendirmiştir. Sokaklardan ülkenin en ücra köşelerine
kadar topluma saçılmayı amaçlayan bu aygıt; sokakları, hapishaneleri,
fabrikaları ve okulları bir laboratuvar, insanları da veri olarak kullanmıştır. Bu
durum bireyin işkence gibi yöntemlerle cezalandırılması anlayışının da
değişmesine sebep olmuştur. Böylece birey; zindan gibi işlevsiz kurumlarda
tutulmayacak, hapishane gibi modern, programlı ve işgücü potansiyelinin
değerlendirilebileceği bir şekilde cezalandırılacaktır. Tanzimat dönemi de bu
bağlamda Osmanlı Devleti için önemli dönüşümlerin yaşandığı bir süreci işaret
eder. Bu sürecin önemli gelişmelerinden biri de XIX. yüzyıl itibariyle devletin
ceza mekanizmasını, çıkardığı kanunlarla hukuki olarak desteklemesi,
ardından modern mahkemeleri ve savcılık kurumunu tesis etmesi olmuştur.
Bununla birlikte devletin klasik çağlardan beri suçluları cezalandırmak için
kullandığı zindanlar, işkence odaları da dönüşerek yerini modern hapishane ve
tevkifhanelere bırakmıştır. Bu çalışmada ise Osmanlı Devleti’ndeki
hapishanelerin ve hukuki reformların, klasik çağlardan modern çağlara doğru
uzanan değişim sürecine kısaca değinilecektir. Çalışmanın esas noktası ise
1919 yılında Beyoğlu Galatasaray Tevkifhanesinin durumu, firar vakaları ve
Mekteb-i Sultani ile oluşan organik komşuluk bağının yarattığı sorunlar
olacaktır.

Nur Shams, near Tulkarm in the northwest West Bank, was a prison labor camp during the British occupation of Palestine from 1919 to 1948; the Palestinian refugee camp, Nur Shams, was established in 1952 on the ruins of this prison. The British Mandate authorities forced prisoners at Nur Shams into hard labor for the Palestine railways under brutal conditions, including food deprivation, abuse and torture, unsanitary accommodations, overcrowding, and medical neglect. Drawing from colonial archives, administrative reports, newspapers, and a Palestinian prisoner's testimony, this article provides a history of the colonial conditions of imprisonment at Nur Shams, with attention to the superexploitation of the prisoners and to their resistance. The article demonstrates that Nur Shams was established to advance British colonial capitalist development, subjugate the Palestinian peasantry, and repress popular resistance to British imperialism. Throughout its years as a prison labor camp, Nur Shams was a site of anti-colonial resistance both within and outside its walls including prisoner escapes, hunger and labor strikes, and external tactics to try to free prisoners. Nur Shams' history sheds light on the early development of the Palestinian prisoners' struggle and the experience of Palestinian prisoners under the British occupation. This case demonstrates the long standing connection of the prisoners' struggle to the broader struggle for national liberation.

As prisões: esses universos opacos onde a lei (a do Estado, bem entendido) só entra com muita dificuldade. A pena deveria ser exatamente o que determina a sentença condenatória. Ilusão da modernidade jurídica? O direito da execução penal relegado ao papel de primo pobre do direito penal. Apesar disso, é de prisões que se fala quase todo dia nos jornais; é o hiperencarceramento um dos mais graves problemas sociais contemporâneos (e não só para quem está do lado de lá das grades). Graças aos trabalhos de historiadores, já existe vasta produção sobre história prisional, mas poucas vezes nos dedicamos a ler os clássicos do pensamento penitenciário. Ao nos debruçar sobre alguns dos textos pioneiros da questão penitenciária – de John Howard, de Jeremy Bentham e de Beaumont e Tocqueville – poderemos começar a compreender a história das difíceis relações entre prisão e direito. Nesta edição do grupo de estudos em história da cultura jurídica nós queremos propor exatamente um primeiro passo por meio da leitura de clássicos (muito mencionados, mas certamente preteridos na leitura em primeira mão diante da profusão de manuais que assolam o ensino do Direito) e de discussões teóricas sobre como analisar a dimensão jurídica da história da questão penitenciária.

En este trabajo abordaremos las experiencias de viaje de tres importantes actores de la reforma penitenciaria argentina: Adolfo S. Carranza (1886-1939), Melitón de las Casas (1879-1952) y Sebastián Soler (1899-1980). Los testimonios dejados por estos autores dan cuenta de los primeros viajes realizados por penitenciaristas argentinos a países limítrofes con fines exclusivos de estudiar sus prisiones. A través del mirador de estos primeros “viajeros penitenciarios” a países vecinos, abordaremos un conjunto de renovaciones –y de anclajes– de un penitenciarismo local que emergió a comienzos del siglo XX y que se consolidó mediante la construcción de importantes y novedosas prisiones, influidas en buena parte por el intercambio viajero. Las nuevas prisiones construidas en las décadas de 1920-1930, además de abandonar el partido radial, también corrieron el eje geográfico local de los “modelos”, al cobrar importancia las penitenciarías de Coronda (Santa Fe) y de Villa Urquiza (Tucumán), entre otras, y dejar definitivamente obsoletos a los edificios de la Penitenciaría de Buenos Aires y de Ushuaia, los primeros “faros de civilización”[D6.1] [A7.1]argentina. Empleamos el término «modelo» ya que fue ese el que los propios actores designaron para sus proyectos de cárcel, tanto en Coronda como en Villa Urquiza, los autores de los proyectos tuvieron la intención de no construir una «copia» o una «adaptación» sino un modelo propio, localizado.