Life Imprisonment Research Articles

IS LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE OR COMMUTATION AN EFFECTIVE ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURE FOR CHINA?

New legislation adopting a tough criminal stance on the crimes of corruption and bribery responds to the need for strengthening Chinese anti-corruption work. The ninth amendment to the Chinese Criminal Law Code, which adds life imprisonment without parole or commutation, has received broad support from all sectors of society. The aim of the amendment, as stated by the legislature, is to safeguard judicial fairness and prevent criminals convicted of the most serious corruption offences from having their prison sentences shortened through commutation. This stated legislative aim is not acceptable. Whether from the perspective of deterrence or alternative measures to the death penalty, the approach of adding life imprisonment without parole or commutation in order to punish the corrupt is not ideal. This article argues that, given the particular nature of crimes of corruption and given the disadvantages of life imprisonment without parole or commutation, restraint in the use of the death penalty does not mean that life imprisonment has to be used as an alternative measure. Moreover, the death penalty with a two-year reprieve is sufficient for realising retribution and prevention as aims of punishment.

The Social Re-Integration of Ex-Prisoners of the Kondengui Central Prison into the Society (Yaounde-Cameroun)

Objective: This article is a result of a study carried out in the town of Yaounde in order to analyse the process of ex-prisoner reintegration in the community. The objective is in an attempt to understand the socio-cultural perceptions that the community holds about ex-prisoners which makes re-integration difficult. Method: Both the qualitative and quantitative methods were used in data collection. This was done through techniques such as documentation, interviews, observations, focus group discussions and a review of literature. Analysis was done using the conflict, incapacitation and the equilibrium model theories respectively. This data was categorised into themes and sub themes such as community’s socio-cultural perceptions, family treatment and consequences of these perceptions on ex-prisoners. Results: Findings revealed that, the family is the determinant factor that helped ex-prisoners re-integrates in the society. This is because 11 out of 15 informants were able to re-integrate into society following the help and understanding from their families. By studying the cases of those rejected by their families, it can be deduced that, their crimes contributed enormously to this rejection. Nevertheless, if one puts aside the fact that they have been able to re-integrate without much problems, the prison is not a place one should be proud of being a member. We then confirmed the saying that the prison is the best place to keep all criminals. Conclusion: This article presents the entire life of ex-convicts while in prison and after (professional, political, economical, social, cultural, distractive and even religious). This will help us understand clearly the link between life in prison, and out of prison. This article is to know the professional activities that have been carried out in prison hence, the influence it might have on them on release back into mainstream society. A senior staff officer in the Kondengui central prison advised that, a good method of ....

Questions of criminological differentiation of the application of punishment in the form of disclaimer

In accordance with the current Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the most severe punishment in the system of measures of state coercion applied to a person found guilty of a crime is imprisonment. There is an opinion in society that the application of punishment to a certain term or life imprisonment is one of the main ways to achieve the goal of punishment. The characteristics of the application of the measure of coercion also have a direct impact on the conditions of serving the sentence and the social environment of the defendant. In most cases, in conditions such as a penitentiary institution or a change in its order, the main factor in committing an intentional serious crime is a violation of the personal qualities of convicts aimed at ill-treatment. Deprivation of liberty has a strong influence on a person, especially on a defendant who has fallen into this type of punishment for the first time, contributes to the restoration of social justice, and the prevention of new crimes. At present, the criminal law policy adheres to the principle of humanism and this regulates the trend towards a decrease in the facts of causing deprivation of liberty by victims of criminal law repression. The author proposes in the article the criminological aspects of serving a sentence of imprisonment, the personality of the offender and the features of his resocialization, as well as ways to improve the penitentiary legislation. Key words: deprivation of liberty, defendant, penitentiary institution, penitentiary system, punishment, criminopenology, principle of humanism.

Defining the Carceral Characteristics of the ‘Dickensian prison’: A Corpus Stylistics Analysis of Dickens’s Novels

Charles Dickens is often evoked to make connections to Victorian times – and to highlight the need for change in today’s society. The situation of prisons is a prime example, where references to the ‘Dickensian prison’ figure in contemporary discourse to draw critical attention to the state of prisons and to call for reform. But it would be too simple to assume that today’s references to the Dickensian prison relate directly to the way Dickens narrates the prison. Therefore, this paper presents a detailed digital humanities textual study of prisons in Dickens’s novels to shed light on the vocabulary that the author uses to talk about this institution. The prisons in Dickens’s novels tend to be historic and outdated prisons, rather than the new Victorian-built model prisons. Using the CLiC (Corpus Linguistics in Context) web app, which combines a set of corpora with tools to access and search sets of texts, we set out to accumulate a substantial amount of textual evidence for a description of the carceral characteristics of Dickens’s prisons. These characteristics describe features of the prison building, prison TimeSpace, prison life, and effects of the prison. Our findings present a valuable platform from which to consider the enduring popularity of the Dickensian prison in contemporary penal discourse.

Comparison Of Islamic Law And Positive Law On Violence In The Name Of Religion In Terrorism Cases

<p><em>The purpose of this study is to determine the legal regulation of violence in the name of religion that contains elements of radicalism, extremism and terrorism in terms of comparative Islamic law and positive law in Indonesia. Radicalism, extremism and terrorism are like three things that go hand in hand, these three are a frightening specter for most of humanity, especially in the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. This research is a type of normative research. The approach used in this study is a statutory and conceptual approach. The results of the study show that in the perspective of Islamic law, behavior that gives birth to extreme understanding by expressing it through violence in order to maintain its ideology can be considered as al-baghy (rebel). Article 43D paragraph (2) letter f of Law no. 5 of 2018 which explains that what is meant by "people or groups of people who have been exposed to radical ideas of terrorism" are people or groups of people who have a radical understanding of terrorism and have the potential to commit acts of terrorism. There are four characteristics of extremists, including making it difficult for themselves to do good, being rude and harsh, easy to disbelieve, and being fanatical about Madzhab and not wanting to follow other opinions. Extremist acts of violence in the name of religion can be punished in accordance with article 170 of the Criminal Code which contains such acts can be punished according to Indonesian law in Article 170 of the Criminal Code. MUI in its fatwa on terrorism views that carrying out acts or acts of terror is unlawful, whether carried out by individuals, groups, or the state. The crime of terrorism is regulated in Law no. 5 of 2018. The criminal threats for perpetrators of terrorism are: imprisonment between 3 to 20 years, life imprisonment or the death penalty</em><em>.</em><em></em></p>

Spiritual and Family Support with Prisoners' Self-Esteem at the Mojokerto Class II Penitentiary: A Correlational Study

A prisoner needs spiritual and family support to keep his pride as if he were in the Penitentiary. Changes in a prisoner's life can make prisoner experience psychological disorders such as low self-esteem. The purpose of this study is to know the spiritual relationship with prisoners' self-esteem, the relationship of support to prisoners' self-esteem and spiritual relationships and family support with prisoners' self-esteem at the Mojokerto Class II B Penitentiary. The research design uses cross sectional. The population of all prisoners in the Mojokerto Class II B Penitentiary was 334 people, a sample of 84 respondents with sampling techniques using simple random sampling. The independent variable is spiritual and family support, and dependent variable is self-esteem. This study uses a logistic regression test with the help of SPSS version 16.0. Research results (p= 0.001) for spiritual self-esteem, meaning there is a spiritual relationship with prisoners' self-esteem, a family support for prisoners' self-esteem (p= 0.001) means there is a relationship of family support with prisoners' self-esteem, there is a spiritual relationship and family support with prisoner self-esteem (p=0,000) and there is no significant difference (p= 0.929) between spiritual and family support for prisoners' self-esteem when viewed from EXP (B) the relationship of family support with self-esteem is greater than the value of EXP (B) spiritual relationship with self-esteem is 0.878 for family support and 0.846 for spiritual, meaning that family support has more effect on prisoners' self-esteem. compared to spiritual. The high spirituality and good family support will be able to increase the self-esteem of prisoners even though they are in the Penitentiary.

A new stage of humanization of the criminal-legal impact regarding the application of punishment in the type of life imprisonment: the problem of correspondence.

The scientific article explores a new stage of humanization of the criminal-legal influence on the application of punishment in the form of life imprisonment. It has been established that a number of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights served as a prerequisite for this process, which generally stated the absence of a mechanism for early release of convicts from serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Ukraine, which would allow the educational purpose of this punishment to be realized. Attention is focused on the fact that the European Court of Human Rights does not oblige the state to provide specific forms of early release from serving a sentence of life imprisonment. At the same time, it is emphasized that this process should be legally defined, transparent and provide the person sentenced to life imprisonment with the "right to hope". An inconsistency was established in the text of the motivational and operative parts of the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine dated September 16, 2021 No. 6-р (II)/2021 (case on review of the sentence of a person sentenced to life imprisonment) in the part of determining the types of early release from serving a sentence in life imprisonment. In the decisive part of the decision, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine obliged the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to introduce two independent, independent measures of a criminal law nature - the replacement of the punishment in the form of life imprisonment with a milder punishment and conditional early release from serving the punishment in the form of life imprisonment will. The article focuses attention on the need to observe the reasonableness and justice of criminal law influence in the process of humanizing life imprisonment. It is argued that excessive humanization of life imprisonment may lead to a decrease in the protective function of criminal legislation and the ability to prevent new criminal offenses. It was concluded that in the conditions of martial law there is an increase in the number of crimes punishable by life imprisonment. The position is expressed that it should be recognized as socially determined to introduce the replacement of punishment in the form of life imprisonment with a milder one and subsequent conditional early release from serving the prescribed sentence, if the convicted person corrects himself and shows his readiness for further resocialization.

Gender Bias in Imprisonment Decisions of Intentional Spousal Homicide in China

Spousal homicide has become one of China's most common forms of femicide. Therefore, the investigation of systematic gender bias and gender in-group bias in imprisonment decisions is conducted in this study to explore the fairness and impartiality of the Chinese judicial system. Fifty random intentional spousal homicide cases in China are analysed using the context analysis method. The study found a large similarity between the judicial decision made by female and male judges; however, male plaintiffs have a larger chance of receiving sentences of life imprisonment and the death penalty from judges of either gender. Moreover, excluding life imprisonment and the death penalty, plaintiffs of identical gender as the judge are more likely to receive slightly shorter sentences, suggesting a slight in-group gender bias in the judicial decision in China.

A Symposium to Mark the Publication, by New York University Press, of Ian O’Donnell's Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose

Recognizing the major scholarly contributions to criminology by the noted Irish criminologist, Ian O’Donnell, The Prison Journal invited seven contemporary corrections and punishment scholars to offer insights into O’Donnell’s new book, Prison Life: Pain, Resistance, and Purpose. Offering contextually rich descriptions of prisoner life, the text features four case study prisons—H Blocks, Northern Ireland; Eastham Unit, Texas; Isir Bet, Ethiopia; and ADX Florence, Colorado, in pivotal time periods and through an individual's custodial career in each institution. The symposium discussants focus on O’Donnell's conceptual framework—the degree of prison integration, system and staff regulation, and legitimacy—and how these reflect the key interactions between punishment and society across time and culture.

Canadian Prison Environments: A Mixed Methods Analysis

The current study uses a mixed methods approach to assess quality of prison life in Canada's Atlantic provincial correctional institutions. Questions from the Measurement of the Quality of Prison Life were adapted to create scales to assess prisoner climate dimension perceptions, with open-ended questions providing qualitative data. Across eight prison sites, statistical analysis revealed between prison differences and confirmed that prison sentence location did matter. The qualitative data emergent themes also produced several consistent concerns that Likert responses could not capture, ranging from primary needs to service desires. Research affirms the importance of studying prison environments and supports the use of mixed methods, as qualitative data can provide greater insight into the lived experience of inmates and better chart change that is beneficial to them.

Premeditated Murder in the Modern Era Comparative Study of Perspectives on Islamic Law and the Criminal Code

This study tries to 1) identify the elements that lead murderers to plan their crimes, and 2) understand those elements. The judge's factors to consider when determining murder cases with intent to kill, 3). Comparing the Criminal Code with Islamic law's definition of premeditated murder. To gather data for this study, a library research technique known as a normative juridical approach to literature evaluation was used. The Criminal Code, followed by the Koran, Hadith, and translations into Indonesian, as well as relevant scholarly works, books, and articles, served as the source for legal information. The study's findings led to the conclusion that Indonesian law's Criminal Code Articles 338–350 govern the crime of murder. In the Criminal Code, premeditated murder is defined as a purposeful killing, whereas in Islamic criminal law, the victim's life is the first thing that is intended to be taken. According to Article 340 of the Criminal Code, the perpetrator of a premeditated murder may be sentenced to life in prison by a jury of judges. Whereas in Islamic criminal law, as mentioned in QS. Al-Maidah verse 45 and Hadith, the perpetrator's acts might result in a death sentence (Qishash) for committing purposeful murder.

‘Time's relentless melt’: The severity of life imprisonment through the prism of old age

‘Time's relentless melt’: The severity of life imprisonment through the prism of old age

‘Time's relentless melt’: The severity of life imprisonment through the prism of old age

This paper considers the pains of life-sentence imprisonment through the novel vantage point of old age understood as a process. Our prison populations are getting older and the use of life sentences is dramatically increasing. Yet, research, campaigning, law and policy have not addressed the long-term consequences of imposing life sentences on prisoners who will age. Whilst far from exhaustive, our study draws on studies in gerontology, health policy and penology. We rely on shared analysis of collected official data from the US and the UK to highlight how the expansion and growth of life sentences on the one hand, and the dramatic aging of the prison population, on the other, are intertwined and need to be considered together. This article emphasizes the urgency of taking a holistic approach to penal severity, one that includes analyses of scale, lived experiences, as well as of law and politics, to uncover the multiple forms of marginalization elderly prisoners are exposed to. Aging is a phenomenon we will all experience, yet, in the context of imprisonment, we argue that old age is a ‘prison problem’ rather than a ‘prisoner problem,’, urging research and policy to depart from the conventional and reductive view of the older prisoner as one in need of transformation and treatment or as being inherently criminal.

Everyday life and tactical resistance of the political prisoners: the case of F-type prisons in Turkey

ABSTRACT This study analyses the everyday lives and resistance of the political prisoners in F- type prisons in Turkey by referring to the concept of ‘tactic’ by Michel de Certeau. It discusses how political prisoners resist isolation, separation, and reduction in such total conditions and how they produce communication, connection, and extension. The article claims that total institutions cannot always create a total order. The political prisoners resist being reduced to F-type discipline and extend their own ways of operating that organize their own everyday reality. How paradoxical it seems, the possibility of resistance and creativity is immersed in the everyday reality of F-type prisons. It only takes the practice of the prisoners to emerge.

The case of Geneviève Lhermitte's euthanasia between psychiatric evaluation, legal aspects and ethical reflection.

A recent euthanasia case in Belgium has garnered attention due to its particularly dramatic aspects, sparking clinical and ethical questions about end-of-life choices in cases of mental suffering. A 56-year-old woman, convicted of the murder of her five minor children and sentenced to life imprisonment, has been granted euthanasia for "irreversible psychological suffering". The clinical and psychodynamic aspects of the case, primarily deduced from press reports, are highly complex and give rise to numerous clinical, medico-legal, and bioethical questions. These include inquiries into the true nature of psychopathology, its actual irreversibility, its impact on the ability to express a euthanasia request with adequate awareness, the preserved capacity for self-determination, and broader issues related to end-of-life requests from patients with mental disorders. These aspects are considered in the context of the legislation in various European countries. The unique details of this case underscore the critical challenges associated with these complex issues.

Juvenile Homicide Offenders: Factors in Desistance after Incarceration.

While several prior studies have examined the prevalence and predictors of recidivism among juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs), much less scholarly attention has been devoted to exploring the post-release factors that influence JHOs to desist from criminal behavior. Given relatively recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, individuals who commit homicide offenses as juveniles are less likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Accordingly, it is important to understand the factors associated with desistance in the post-incarceration lives of JHOs. The present study was designed to assess the effects of post-release factors on JHOs' recidivism outcomes, using a sample of 19 male JHOs from a southeastern U.S. state who were convicted as adults and sentenced to serve time in prison in the 1980s. These men were interviewed approximately 35 years after their original homicide offense about their adjustment to life in prison and after release, as well as their reasons for engaging in criminal behavior during adolescence. Thematic qualitative analysis was used to identify the post-release factors that were prevalent in the lives of the JHOs who desisted from crime. These five factors included avoiding old neighborhood and friends, positive intimate relationship, stable employment, human agency, and generativity. The implications of the findings for the prevention of recidivism among JHOs, as well as avenues for future research, are discussed.

Relevance of Life Prison in View from the Purpose of Criminal

Forms of imprisonment are divided into 2 (two), namely imprisonment for a certain time and imprisonment for life. Life imprisonment is a prison sentence that is served by the convict by remaining in prison until his death. This research is a legal research that uses a statutory approach, and a conceptual approach is used to find out the effectiveness and efficiency of life imprisonment as a form of punishment. This research also describes the ineffectiveness of life imprisonment and seeks to describe forms of punishment that are more appropriate to be carried out in this modern era for the sake of upholding justice and achieving the goals of punishment.

Camp in Pravieniškės near Kaunas in 1941–1944

The camp in Pravieniškės was located within the administrative boundaries of Pravieniškės, located about 25 km from Kaunas. It was established during the period of the Republic of Lithuania, as a correctional facility. In August 1941 the Germans established the Pravieniškės Transitional Labour Camp (Zwangsarbeitslager Provenischken) there, which from 1943 was a branch of the Kaunas Concentration Camp (KL Kaunas) and continued to serve as a labour camp. Detainees were brought to this camp from the prisons of the General Commissariat of Lithuania, i.e. the Lukiszki Prison in Vilnius, the Kaunas Prison and Ponevezh (Panevėžys). People of various nationalities were held in Pravieniškės (Prawieniszki): Lithuanians (60%), Poles, Russians, Roma and Jews (mainly from the Kaunas ghetto). About 1,000 prisoners could be held in this camp at a time. People were sent here for a variety of offences: political prisoners, violators of forced labour orders, Soviet prisoners of war with their families, and those convicted of common crimes. Also incarcerated in Pravieniškės by administrative decision were deserters from the German army convicted of evading military service in the German army. People of Polish nationality placed in Pravieniškės were mainly accused of belonging to the resistance movement, communist activity, listening to the radio, possession of weapons, sabotage, escape from forced labour and communist activity. Guards executed prisoners on the camp grounds and in nearby forests. About 280 Jews were shot there in August 1941, and another 253 Jews in September 1941. Also, many attempts to escape from the camp were punished by execution. As the Eastern Front approached the borders of the Reich, the process of obliterating the traces of the crimes committed began. Due to the relatively small number of those murdered, it was not necessary for the notorious Sonderkommando 1005 to arrive in the area. A few dozen men directed to burn the corpses of those murdered in the nearby forest were enough. Members of the Pravieniškės camp crew were tried after the war by various organs of the Soviet justice system: courts, tribunals and collegia. Also in Poland, at the Institute of National Remembrance in Gdansk, an investigation was conducted into the case. Beginning in mid-July 1944, people convicted by Soviet tribunals were incarcerated in the camp in Pravieniškės: former camp guards, as well as members of the Vilnius Home Army arrested after Operation ‘Ostra Brama’. The prisoners were again employed to work on the peat bog and in the camp greenhouse. Today, every Lithuanian associates the name of Pravieniškės with the prison. A penitentiary facility still operates on the site of the former camp with places for 2,500 inmates, including those sentenced to life imprisonment.

Racial Politics in the Contemporary Prison Society: The Importance of Race and Ethnicity to Prison Social Organization

Prior research documents race and ethnicity as central to how individuals navigate the social and physical space of prisons. Racial segregation persists as a feature of prison life, and in navigating this racialized structure, racial groups construct and enforce a set of racialized norms to govern behavior (i.e., the “racial code”) that reinforce and reify prison racial politics. These processes, however, have remained largely descriptive in nature. Using data from a sample of incarcerated men in Arizona prisons ( N = 251), this article extends prior work by operationalizing the concept of the racial code, assessing its dimensionality, distinguishing it from the prison code, and differentiating how features of prison social organization influence racial code adherence and mobilization. Results suggest that the racial code is distinct from the prison code and that racial differences exist in the extent of adhering to versus mobilizing the racial code, net of gang status.

Status detentionis, human dignity and protection of human rights in the European criminal law

Human life and dignity, the status of prisoners, their problems and rights after the Tampere European Council and the CFREU are still an ongoing topic and main objective for the European area of freedom, security and justice. Their implementation is a very difficult path not due to the overcrowding of the European prison system but also due to the lack of internal, national rules that hinder human dignity and life of prisoners. The jurisprudence of the two European Courts (Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is rich and indirectly it highlights a continuous impartial dialogue to address delicate problems of vulnerable people such as prisoners and still unresolved issues that are based on articles of the treaty of Lisbon and the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU).