Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-12-Speech-3-410"
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"en.20080312.26.3-410"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, in his classic book ‘Discipline and Punish’ the French philosopher Michel Foucault mentions, among others, three aspects of imprisonment. These aspects have survived throughout the whole long history of punishment until today.
Firstly, there is the original aim of isolating an offender from the society; secondly, the punishment offers a chance to come to terms with guilt (catharsis); and thirdly, there is the modern aspect of offering the possibility of rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The last aspect is seen as the most important one in civilised countries.
Society does not take revenge against an offender and does not want to degrade his or her dignity. On the contrary, it makes an effort, sometimes against serious odds, to change the sentenced prisoner’s behaviour pattern that had led to the person’s conflict with the law. Imprisonment is not meant to cause harm to those sentenced, let alone to members of their families.
The rapporteur very clearly defined one problem of imprisonment: the focus is on the guilt and punishment of an individual while the fact that the punishment also has an impact on those who are dependent on the sentenced person is ignored. These dependents are generally the children of female prisoners.
Mothers with one child account for more than half of all women imprisoned in Europe. The exact numbers differ from country to country, as do prison conditions. For example, in my country, the Czech Republic, prison overcrowding is the most serious problem. On the other hand, the responsible authorities are making efforts to alleviate the negative impact of punishment on women and their family members, and make the return to normal life easier for these women. That said, efforts to help prisoners integrate into society are hampered by the lack of funding needed, for example, for social workers.
I agree with the rapporteur that it is important to improve the conditions for maintaining family ties because separation from family, combined with guilt and punishment, results in estrangement, which makes returning from prison much more difficult. Of course I am not referring to the cases where family ties had already been severed prior to imprisonment.
I will conclude with one more important point: psychological studies show that female prisoners find it difficult to adjust to living in close proximity to each other. Men are better at putting up with forced proximity and solving conflicts."@en1
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