Sytuacja prawna ofiary przestępstwa w postępowaniu wykonawczym w perspektywie sprawiedliwości naprawczej

The article is devoted to the legal situation of a crime victim in the course of executive penal proceedings. The starting point for the considerations was the statement that Goffman’s concept of total institutions and the resulting negative consequences, such as the effects of deculturation or deprivation affecting inmates, are still valid in relation to Polish penitentiary units. It is considered that restorative justice can be an effective instrument for the transition from a total institution to its negation, that is, a permeable institution, especially insofar as it promotes tools for victim and community activation in criminal proceedings. Therefore, the situation of the victim in the current model of executive proceedings was analyzed from the perspective of the possibility of implementing the idea of restorative justice. The subject matter of the article is not limited only to a synthesis of the victim’s rights under the current Executive Penal Code. The provisions normalizing the rights of the victim were analyzed in the context of the whole Code regulation and with reference to the earlier stages of criminal proceedings. In this way a complete and actual picture of the victim’s situation at this stage of criminal proceedings was presented, which was then compared with the standard of restorative justice. The critical analysis made it possible to identify the shortcomings in the current regulation of the victim’s legal situation and to outline the direction in which the legislator should proceed in order to achieve the standard of restorative justice, which will make it possible to increase the permeability of penitentiary units and thus minimize their total character.

Sensing freedom: Insights into long-term prisoners’ perceptions of the outside world

In recent years, scholars have come to agree that ‘total institutions’ are in general more permeable than as outlined in prior studies. The idea of the ‘totality’ of prisons has been challenged, for example, by acknowledging the penetration of the outside world through media or external visitors. However, prison surroundings are often a topic that is not granted a lot of attention. Using ethnographic data on the everyday lives of prisoners sentenced to indefinite incarceration in Switzerland, this article explores long-term prisoners’ sensory perceptions of the outside world, in particular through hearing, seeing and smelling. It is argued that this affects not only the prisoners’ understanding of ‘the prison’ but also their experience of time and their sense of self. A closer look at their diverse ways of dealing with these (potential) connections to the outside world reveals their individual approaches to the indefinite nature of their incarceration.

Boundaries in the Making: Transformations in Erving Goffman’s Total Institution through the Case of a Female Benedictine Monastery

Total institutions have undergone profound changes since Erving Goffman published his seminal work Asylums in 1961. This article explores the persistence and transformation of total institutions under late-modern conditions. Based upon empirical research conducted in a female Benedictine monastery, I analyse changes in the physically bounded structure of a total institution. Specifically, I address the trend towards greater permeability and flexibility of enclosed total spaces. Inspired by Georg Simmel’s spatial insights, I examine how boundaries are historically reshaped through changing relations of distance and proximity to wider society, and how these shifts alter the material expression and configuration of power that originally characterised the monastery’s totality. This article claims the ongoing relevance of Goffman’s conceptualisation to accommodate such modifications and illustrates how, in certain cases, adaptations of total institutions to contemporary conditions can be understood as involving the reconfiguration, rather than the dismantling, of totality.

The micropolitics of conflicts in total institutions – The case of special approved homes for youths in Sweden

This article focuses on conflicts between youths and staff at special approved homes in Sweden. We direct a special focus at the institutional micropolitics within which these conflicts arise and which the conflicts also contribute to form. Drawing on the work of Emerson and Messinger, our point of departure is an interactionist analysis of the micropolitics of trouble. One focal aspect in our study is the recurring patterns of conflicts – a pattern we have chosen to label the ‘conflict script’. The conflict script is a process set in motion when the staff explicitly state that they have ‘had enough’. Once started, it becomes an imperative and is therefore, in a sense, a consistent micropolitical measure. The conflict script generates immutable positions – the staff cannot back down, since their authority is at stake, and the youths know that resistance will result in the use of coercion. However, what leads to the staff having ‘had enough’ varies between interactions, which thus produces inconsistent micropolitics. The conflict script is central to understanding how trivial breaches of the rules, or other forms of disturbances, can escalate into situations that involve the use of force in the form of physical restraint and isolation.

‘We have become prisoners of our own age’: from a continuing care retirement community to a total institution in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak

Background and objectives during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Israel, people residing in continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) found themselves under strict instructions to self-isolate, imposed by the CCRC managements before, during and after the nationwide lockdown. The present study explored the personal experiences of CCRC residents during the lockdown. Research design and methods in-depth interviews were conducted with 24 CCRC residents from 13 different CCRCs. Authors performed a thematic analysis of interview transcripts, using constant comparisons and contrasts. Results three major themes were identified: (i) ‘Us vs. them: Others are worse off’. Older residents engaged in constant attempts to compare their situation to that of others. The overall message behind these downward comparisons was that the situation is not so bad, as others are in a worse predicament; (ii) ‘Us vs. them: Power imbalance’. This comparison emphasised the unbalanced power-relations between older adults and the staff and management in the setting and (iii) ‘We have become prisoners of our own age’. Interviewees described strong emotions of despair, depression and anger, which were intensified when the rest of society returned back to a new routine, whilst they were still under lockdown. Discussion and implications the measures imposed on residents by managements of CCRCs during the lockdown, and the emotional responses of distress among some of the residents, revealed that CCRCs have components of total institutions, not normally evident. This underscores the hidden emotional costs of the lockdown among those whose autonomy was compromised.

‘Re-socialisation' in isolated spaces: A case study on the social organisation of Fangcang shelter hospital patients under extreme spatial conditions

Fangcang shelter hospitals – erected by installing medical equipment in large public venues – played an essential role during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Their isolation, interior density and patients' mutual exposure deviate from normal living conditions, necessitating the study on the adaptation, social organisation and emotional response of patients. For this purpose, we conducted spatial analysis, semi-structured interviews with patients and medical workers and social media mining. We found: (1) Patients were deprived of former identities and equalised upon hospitalisation, which formed the basis of later self-organised hierarchical social relationships. (2) Intimate spatial structures expedited relationship construction among neighbouring patients and facilitated community building by expanding the influence that the more active patients exerted on the passive ones. (3) These social situations generally helped alleviate patients' anxiety. Our study reveals the social and emotional ramifications of such emergency spaces on people, thus providing insight for pandemic response and other global emergencies. It also responds to the theory of ‘the production of space' and elucidate the theory of ‘total institutions' from a new perspective.

Total institutions in the policy of social control

The article is focused on the research of social control and functioning of total institutions in the social control policy in the Postmodern society. Topicality. The relevance of this study is explained with qualitatively new trends in the development of the Postmodern society, where criminal justice is increasingly ceasing to be actually classical justice in the traditional sense, and is increasingly manifesting itself as a purely political tool. In the paper, the author departs from the traditional approach to social control, which in the light of classical views is carried out by society on the "deviant". Results. The author postulates that in the new coordinate system of Postmodern society number of deviants expands due to potential (sometimes even simply declared) deviants. The key categories of protection of society are not "crime" and "just and lawful punishment" but deeper and penetrating social control over much larger groups with the help of formally independent institutions. The above process is characterized by the fact that clear boundaries between such closed total institutions and non-institutional applications are blurring. The boundaries between the above-mentioned "honest citizens" and "deviants" (even criminals) are also blurring. It has been found that in modern conditions, society no longer exercises social control, but social control over society by the state and even private entities that have national or even transnational power. Conclusion. The article concludes that in the Postmodern society, punishment and other forms of social control are devoid of traditional goals (including "correction" or "re-education" of deviants). Society ceases to be a subject of social control and becomes its object, exposed to net-widening processes, as a result of which the Posmodern society acquires the characteristics of a carceral society, where national social control systems (including total institutions) become more mobile and acquire qualitatively new forms, significance and significance.