Questions tagged [prison]

For questions about the housing of convicted offenders in secured locations as part of their punishment.

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What it the logic behind prisons' spatial distribution around the world?

I have created a project which shows the distribution of prisons globally. There is likely a rationale behind this distribution. For instance, why does Switzerland have small prisons while France has ...
saldenisov's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
3k views

Do Palestinian territories actually contain any prisons or similar penal/detention facilities?

Hamas has made homosexuality punishable by 10 years imprisonment, but does it actually maintain/administer/have access to any prison facilities in the first place? If so, how many, and what are they ...
Frank's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
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How common is it for countries to draft directly from prison?

According to RFERL Russian legislation currently forbids the military to register convicted prisoners for the draft or call them up for duty. But last month, the Defense Ministry submitted a proposal ...
Fizz's user avatar
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10 votes
9 answers
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Non-anarchists often say the existence of prisons deters violent crime. How it is then that the USA is so high in violent crime?

People who are not anarchists often say that the existence of prisons deters people from violent crime. If you ask me, that implies that countries with higher incarceration rate tend to be lower in ...
FlatAssembler's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
483 views

How is the safety of ex-presidents in jail guaranteed?

Ex-presidents and ex-prime ministers are surprisingly often convicted of crimes and sometimes sent to jail. Sarkozy, Olmert, Lee, Katsav , and Park are recent examples. What do countries do about the ...
Simd's user avatar
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-4 votes
2 answers
362 views

What is the motivation for the merceneries to join Prigozhin's Wagner PMC? [closed]

I read that Wagner PMC recruits criminals from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine and pays as much as US$14,000 monthly. However, they have no or minimal training in combat and are practically being ...
user366312's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
3k views

Could the German government decide to free Russian citizen Vadim Krasikov from prison?

So there are currently discussions between Russia and the US about some possible prisoner exchange to release US citizens Griner and Whelan from Russia. Apartently Russia made a request (through ...
quarague's user avatar
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-1 votes
3 answers
352 views

Why are notable prisoners sometimes comfortably housed?

I know of a US citizen who committed pretty brutal crimes in Afghanistan pre-Taliban, and went to a notorious Afghan prison. He had a dorm-like cell and was reportedly given alcohol and movies. The ...
Ken - Enough about Monica's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
215 views

What sanctions is the UK parliament considering against social media executives?

According to a recent article by the Guardian, a new digital watchdog will be set up with the power to impose fines upto 10% of global revenue. In the case of Facebook, this will be upto £10 billion. ...
Mozibur Ullah's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
214 views

Penal labour in United States

Penal labour is banned in most if not all of the United Kingdom. Perhaps because of No prisoner shall be employed, in the service of the institution, in any disciplinary capacity https://www.ohchr....
Gary 2's user avatar
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22 votes
1 answer
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Why does New York City spend 3 times as much per year per inmate than the runner up King County (Seattle)?

New York City spends nearly 450k per prisoner per year, which is almost 3 times higher than second place King County (which contains Seattle). Why is New York such an outlier? Source: Vera Institute ...
EveryoneElse's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
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Why aren't state and federal prisons forced to allow prison inmates to vote at least in federal elections?

Someone claimed that current prisoners are allowed to run for federal offices like the House of Representatives and fact checkers said that was true. We are not talking about people released but ...
Number File's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

How can Navalny communicate with the outside world from a top security Russian prison?

One of the most important parts of the prison detention, that the convict can not communicate, or only on very limited ways (like once in a month can meet his family or so). Sometimes there are same ...
Gray Sheep's user avatar
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47 votes
3 answers
18k views

If a prisoner runs for President and wins, do they stay in prison while elected?

It's possible for a U.S. citizen to run for President while in prison, as with Eugene Debs. Suppose a prisoner runs and wins. Let's also suppose that the crimes in for which the prisoner is serving ...
agc's user avatar
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9 votes
1 answer
2k views

Does any country in the EU allow forced prison labor?

I'm aware that some democratic countries, including the US and Japan allow forced prison labor, meaning that refusal to work in prison is punishable e.g. by solitary confinement (or a "chill box&...
Fizz's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
591 views

Are the other countries besides Romania that automatically reduce prison sentences for bad prison conditions?

Romania Insider news from 2017: The law allowing inmates serving time in bad prison conditions to get six days cut off from their sentence for every 30 days in prison was promulgated by President ...
Fizz's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
559 views

Why does the FIRST STEP Act have bipartisan support?

Note: misconceptions/challenged statements from a previous edit are struck through viz. insight from an answer. There's been a campaign for US federal prison reform for decades. It's long had a lot ...
J.G.'s user avatar
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48 votes
4 answers
25k views

What does Kanye (Ye) West actually mean by "Abolish the 13th Amendment"?

On his Saturday Night Live appearance on the 29th of September 2018, Kanye West spoke on "abolishing the 13th amendment". (This may have been stewing for a while, but that is when I first became ...
Pieter Geerkens's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
340 views

Global policies on hiring ex-convicts

Spawned from this other SE question. In the United States it is challenging for ex-convicts to find gainful employment. A few states have gotten on board the Ban the Box initiative, referring to the ...
Gramatik's user avatar
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14 votes
4 answers
2k views

Why does the US prison system seem so ineffective when compared to prison systems in other developed countries?

According to this article Norway's prison system is very effective when compared to the one in US: incarceration rate - 75 / 100K compared to 707 / 100K in US recidivism rate - 20% compared to more ...
Alexei's user avatar
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22 votes
3 answers
5k views

Politics involved in separation of prisons and jails?

I try to understand why there are US federal and state prisons, and county jails. I did not find a clear separation of the use of the three variants when reading Wikipedia regarding the topic. It ...
Volker Siegel's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
1k views

Are minorities given harsher sentences in the criminal justice system in the US?

US has the largest incarceration rate of any country with 1 in 100 being in prison or incarceration. In 2016, the Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in the United States that about 2,298,300 ...
LegendofLegends's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
408 views

Currently, do prison inmates in the state of New York do "hard labor"?

A relative is insisting that currently, in our state, which is New York, prison inmates are required to do "hard labor." I was skeptical, but I tried to find some evidence of this by searching the ...
aparente001's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
4k views

What are reasons that America has the highest incarceration rate in the world?

America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, both in absolute numbers, and relative to population (only China and India have higher populations, and they have fewer people incarcerated). ...
Tom Au's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
224 views

Governments friendly to the USA willing to accept Guantanamo detainees from other countries

This question is related to Why require a stable home country for release from Guantanamo Bay? . The United States has released some Guantanamo detainees to countries from which they originated. In ...
Andrew Grimm's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
701 views

What alternatives have been proposed for prison sentences for violent crimes?

According to prison critics and others, prisons are schools of crime. This viewpoint holds that when someone gets a prison sentence for a small crime, they will meet bigger criminals and build a ...
gerrit's user avatar
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