‘Dangerous Prisoners’ in the Polish Penitentiary System

Abstract

The subject of the presentation are the so-called dangerous prisoners in the Polish penitentiary. The number of such prisoners (remand and sentenced prisoners) is continuously changing, now in the whole system there are approximately 400 persons (347 as of 31 May 2005, the whole population was 82,867 prisoners). Dangerous prisoners are qualified into this group by the prison administration on an ex lege basis (those who committed very serious crimes) or for an extremely negative behaviour of the prisoner at the time of his/her isolation. The author describes the group of dangerous prisoners from the sociological, legal and especially human rights points of view. He discusses the methods of their treatment and the issue of the penitentiary learning to deal with such prisoners.