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

Prison

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.

There are a variety of other names for prisons, such as a prison-house, penitentiary, or jail (in Australian and British English, the spelling gaol is sometimes used in formal contexts, although this spelling is pronounced in the same fashion). There are, also, many colloquial terms for prisons — such as big house, the Pen (short for penitentiary), the hole, beantown, stir, The Yard, can, clink, joint, jug, cooler, hoosegow, lockup, graybar hotel, concrete Hilton, lockdown, nick, pokey, slammer, up the river — and a similar range of terms for imprisonment, including doing time, bird, doing a bid, being a guest of Her Majesty, porridge, working for Copper John. In the 1790s, the Quakers in Pennsylvania coined the term penitentiary to describe a place for penitents sorry for their sins. In the United States, prison or penitentiary typically denote a place where inmates go to serve long terms after having been found guilty of a felony. The United States is one country where the term jail generally refers to facilities where detainees are locked up for a relatively short time (either while awaiting trial or serving a sentence of one year or less upon conviction for a misdemeanor). In the United States, jails are usually operated under the jurisdiction of local (county) governments while prisons are operated under the jurisdiction of state or federal governments. In Washington some adult prisons are called reformatories, while in other states this is reserved as a term for a prison of the juvenile justice system. The term correctional facility has also been used.

Prison design Male and female prisoners are typically kept in separate locations or prisons altogether. Prison accommodations, 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 up to thirty cells. Cells are the smallest prison accommodation, each holding at least one or two 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”.

The main facilities that prisons have: 1. a main entrance, which may be known as the gatelodge or “Sally port”. 2. a chapel, which will often house chaplaincy offices and facilities for counselling of individuals or groups. Prisons may also contain a mosque (eg. HMP Stafford in the United Kingdom) or other religious facility. 3. an education department, which may include a library, and which provides adult or continuing education opportunities for prisoners. 4. at least one exercise yard, fenced areas which prisoners may use for recreational and exercise purposes. 5. a healthcare facility or infirmary, which often includes a dentist. 6. a segregation unit or “block”, which is used to separate unruly, dangerous, or vulnerable prisoners from the general population. Inmates may be placed into segregation to maintain the safety and security of the institution, or the safety of any persons. Also, they may be segregated to preserve the integrity of an investigation, or when no other housing is practical. 7. vulnerable prisoners units (VPs), or Protective Custody (PC), used to accommodate prisoners classified as vulnerable, such as sex offenders, former police officers, informants, and those that have gotten themselves in debt to other inmates. 8. Safe cells, used to keep prisoners under constant visual observation. 9. Isolation cells, often referred to as “the hole” in some jurisdictions, used to keep prisoners completely isolated, usually as a punishment for misbehavior. 10. visiting rooms, where prisoners may be allowed restricted contact with relatives, friends, lawyers, or other people. 11. in some prisons in the USA, Death Row, which is a section kept for criminals awaiting execution.

Other facilities that are often found in prisons include kitchens, gymnasiums, and accommodation for prison staff.

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.

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.

Prisons and the criminal justice system A convicted defendant will typically receive a “custodial sentence” if found guilty of committing a serious criminal offense such as physical assault, rape, murder, and acts involving circumstances of aggravation (eg. use of a weapon, violence, children), or has reoffended. In some countries, the law may require that courts hand down a mandatory and sometimes lengthy custodial sentence whenever a crime involves property, drugs or other prohibited substances, or where the defendant has previously been convicted. Some jurisdictions may hold a suspect in prison on remand for varying periods of time. The nature of prisons and of prison systems varies from country to country, although many systems typically segregate prisoners by gender, and by category of risk. Prisons are often rated by the degree of security, ranging from minimum security (used mainly for nonviolent offenders such as those guilty of fraud) through to maximum security and super-maximum or supermax (often used for those who have committed violent crimes or crimes while imprisoned).

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04