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A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned, and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Prisons are conventionally institutions which form part of the criminal justice system of a country, such that imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime.
A criminal suspect who has been charged with or is likely to be charged with a criminal offense may be held on remand in prison if he or she is denied, refused or unable to meet conditions of bail, or is unable to post bail. This may also occur where the court determines that the suspect is at risk of absconding before the trial, or is otherwise a risk to society. A criminal defendant may also be held in prison while awaiting trial or a trial verdict. If found guilty, a defendant will be convicted and may receive a custodial sentence requiring imprisonment.
Prisons may also be used as a tool of political repression to detain political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and "enemies of the state", particularly by authoritarian regimes. In times of war or conflict, prisoners of war may also be detained in prisons. A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons, and depending on their nature, may invoke a corrections system. Although people have been imprisoned throughout history, they have also regularly been able to perform prison escapes.
Male and female prisoners are typically kept in separate locations or separate prisons altogether. Prison accommodation, especially modern prisons in the developed world, are often divided into wings identified by a name, number or letter. These wings may be further divided into landings that are essentially "floors" containing a number of cells. Cells are the smallest prison accommodation, each holding one or more prisoners. Cells which hold more than three or four prisoners may be known as dormitories. A building holding more than one wing is known as a "hall".
Amongst the facilities that prisons may have are:
Prisons are normally surrounded by fencing, walls, earthworks, geographical features, or other barriers to prevent escape. Multiple barriers, concertina wire, electrified fencing, secured and defensible main gates, armed guard towers, lighting, motion sensors, dogs, and roving patrols may all also be present depending on the level of security. Remotely controlled doors, CCTV monitoring, alarms, cages, restraints, nonlethal and lethal weapons, riot-control gear and physical segregation of units and prisoners may all also be present within a prison to monitor and control the movement and activity of prisoners within the facility.
Modern prison designs, particularly those of high-security prisons, have sought to increasingly restrict and control the movement of prisoners throughout the facility while minimizing the corrections staffing needed to monitor and control the population. As compared to the traditional landing-cellblock-hall designs, many newer prisons are designed in a decentralized "podular" layout with individual self-contained housing units, known as "pods" or "modules", arranged around centralized outdoor yards in a "campus". The pods contain tiers of cells laid out in an open pattern arranged around a central control station from which a single corrections officer can monitor all of the cells and the entire pod. Control of cell doors, communications and CCTV monitoring is conducted from the control station as well. Movement out of the pod to the exercise yard or work assignments can be restricted to individual pods at designated times, or else prisoners may be kept almost always within their pod or even their individual cells depending upon the level of security. Goods and services, such as meals, laundry, commisary, educational materials, religious services and medical care can increasingly be brought to individual pods or cells as well.
Conversely, despite these design innovations, overcrowding at many prisons, particularly in the US, has resulted in a contrary trend, as many prisons are forced to house large numbers of prisoners, often hundreds at a time, in gymnasiums or other large buildings that have been converted into massive open dormitories.
Lower-security prisons are often designed with less restrictive features, confining prisoners at night in smaller locked dormitories or even cottage or cabin-like housing while permitting them freer movement around the grounds to work or activities during the day.
See Panopticon for a historical prison design that has influenced modern designs.
Prisons form part of military systems, and are used variously to house prisoners of war, unlawful combatants, those whose freedom is deemed a national security risk by military or civilian authorities, and members of the military found guilty of a serious crime. See military prison.
Certain countries maintain or have in the past had a system of political prisons; arguably the gulags associated with Stalinism are best known. The definition of what is and is not a political crime and a political prison is, of course, highly controversial. Some psychiatric facilities have characteristics of prisons, especially when confining patients who have committed a crime and are considered dangerous.
It is plain from many decrees in the "Corpus Juris Canonici" that the Roman Catholic Church has claimed and exercised the right, belonging to a perfect and visible society, of protecting its members by condemning the guilty to imprisonment. The object of prisons originally, both among the Hebrews and the Romans, was merely the safe-keeping of a criminal, real or pretended, until his trial. The ecclesiastical idea of imprisonment, however, is that confinement be made use of both as a punishment and as affording an opportunity for reformation and reflection. This method of punishment was anciently applied even to clerics. Thus, Boniface VIII (cap. "Quamvis", iii, "De poen.", in 6) decrees: Although it is known that prisons were specially instituted for the custody of criminals, not for their punishment, yet we shall not find fault with you if you commit to prison for the performance of penance, either perpetually or temporarily as shall seem best, those clerics subject to you who have confessed crimes or been convicted of them, after you have carefully considered the excesses, persons and circumstances involved in the case. The Church adopted the extreme punishment of perpetual imprisonment because, by the canons, the execution of offenders, whether clerical or lay, could not be ordered by ecclesiastical judges. It was quite common in ancient times to imprison in monasteries, for the purpose of doing penance, those clerics who had been convicted of grave crimes (c. vii, dist. 50). The "Corpus Juris", however, says (c. "Super His", viii, "De poen.") that incarceration does not of itself inflict the stigma of infamy on a cleric, as is evident from a papal pronouncement on the complaint of a cleric who had been committed to prison because he vacillated in giving testimony. The reply recorded is that imprisonment does not ipso facto carry with it any note of infamy.
As to monastic prisons for members of religious orders, we find them recorded in decrees dealing with the incorrigibility of those who have lost the spirit of their vocation. Thus, by command of Urban VIII, the Congregation of the Council (21 September, 1624) decreed: For the future, no regular, legitimately professed, may be expelled from his order unless he be truly incorrigible. A person is not to be judged truly incorrigible unless not only all those things are found verified which are required by the common law (notwithstanding the constitutions of any religious order even confirmed and approved by the Holy See), but also, until the delinquent has been tried by fasting and patience for one year in confinement. Therefore, let every order have private prisons, at least one in every province. The crimes in question must be such as by natural or civil law would merit the punishment of death or imprisonment for life (Reiffenstuel, "Jus Can. univ.", no. 228). Innocent XII reduced the year required by the above-mentioned decree to six months (Decree "Instantibus", 2). A decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Council (13 November, 1632) declares that a religious is not to be judged incorrigible because he flees from imprisonment, unless, after being punished three times, he should make a fourth escape. As the civil laws do not, at present, permit of incarceration by private authority, the Congregation on the Discipline of Regulars has decreed (22 January, 1886) that trials for incorrigibility, preceding dismissal, should be carried out by summary, not formal, process, and that for each case recourse should be had to Rome. A vestige of the monastic imprisonment (which, of course, nowadays depends only on moral force) is found in the decree of Leo XIII (4 November, 1892), in which he declares that religious who have been ordained and wish to leave their order cannot, under pain of perpetual suspension, depart from the cloister (exire ex clausura) until they have been adopted by a bishop.
As of 2006, it is estimated that at least nine million people are currently imprisoned worldwide.[1] It is believed that this number is likely to be much higher, in view of general under-reporting and a lack of data from various countries, especially authoritarian regimes. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the prison population in most countries has increased significantly .
In absolute terms, the United States currently has the largest inmate population in the world, with more than 2 million[2] in prison and jails even though violent crime and property crime have been declining since the 1990s according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.[3] In 2002, both Russia and China also had prison populations in excess of 1 million.[1][4] In October 2006, Russian prison population was decreased to 869,814 which translated into 611 prisoners per 100,000 population.
As a percentage of total population, the United States also has the largest imprisoned population, with 738 people per 100,000 serving time, awaiting trial or otherwise detained.[5] New Zealand has the second highest prison population per capita amongst developed countries, with 169 prisoners per 100,000.
In March 2007, the United Kingdom had 80,000 inmates (up from 73,000 in 2003 and 44,000 in 1985) in its facilities, the highest rate in the EU (a record formerly held by Portugal).
The high proportion of prisoners in some developed countries is due to various causes, but the attitude towards drug-taking plays a considerable part. In undeveloped countries, rates of incarceration are often lower, though this is not a rule. In general, such societies have less goods to steal, and a more community based social system, with less judicial law-enforcement.
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The value of 743 in the USA includes 491 prisoners per 100,000 in prisons,[6] and 252 prisoners per 100,000 in jails.[7]
Mean: Estimate of 197 (196.63) Median: 92 Range: 696
Prisons for juveniles (people under 18) are known as young offenders institutes and hold minors who have been convicted, many countries have their own age of criminal responsibility in which children are deemed legally responsible for their actions for a crime.
Many prisons in Australia were built by convict labour in the 1800s. During the 1990s various state governments in Australia engaged private sector correctional corporations to build and operate prisons whilst several older government run institutions were decommissioned. Operation of Federal detention centres was also privatised at a time when a large influx of illegal immigrants began to arrive in Australia.
Today prisons in Turkey are three kinds: Closed, semi-open and open prisons. Closed prisons are seperated into different kinds according to its structure and the number of the prisoners that are held in.Examples are A type, B type, F type etc. F types are the ones that high penalty prisoners are held and the rest is built and being built in today are L types that are for low penalty prisoners;that have swimming pools,children care units,sports and recreation areas,hobby lounges and workshops.
For information on prisons and related subjects in the United Kingdom, see articles on Scottish Prison Service, Northern Ireland Prison Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service, on the United Kingdom prison population and the List of United Kingdom prisons. Also see house arrest.
France has 188 prisons in mainland and the oversea territories. Statistics showed around 50,000 places on July 1, 2005 for around 60,000 prisoners.
Germany has 196 prisons (of which 19 are open institutions). Official statistics showed 79,979 places on August 31 2006. On the same day, there were 77,166 prisoners (of which 13,233 pre-trial; 62,029 serving sentences; 1904 others, i.e. mainly civil prisoners; 4073 were female). This is the highest number of prisoners since 1990, when the first statistics after German unification were published.[8][9]
The following are a selected list of prisons with well-known historical significance:
There are many famous work of literature describing or discussing prisons. Examples include:
There have been several films produced that depict prison life, including:
Corresponding with prisoners is very helpful to them, but carries risks for both correspondents - improper mail to inmates can cost them privileges (normally, all mail to inmates is read by prison staff). Use of a pen-pal service reduces (but not eliminates) these risks - as of 2005, there were more than 36 such services for U.S. prisoners alone. A unique service called PrisonMail.org was established in 2004 as a means to enable family members or other supportive individuals to correspond with inmates through use of the Internet. The Missouri Department of Corrections has stated that, as of June 1, 2007, inmates will not be allowed to use prison pen-pal websites.("Acting upon the recommendation of an Offender Fraud Committee he formed in 2005, Missouri Department of Corrections Director Larry Crawford announced today the Department will ban offenders from soliciting pen pals on the internet. The ban takes effect June 1st.")
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