does any one here know about their countrie's prison system? I am making a research on the idea of prison in different countries. so if u know about the system in your country., please let me know

About the Dutch prison system you can find here: http://www.dji.nl/main.asp?lid=en

thanks Trudy

Sorry I couldn't find a link for Türkçe prisons for you but I would be glad to tell you about them if you wish. If so say here or in PM.

I have found a link on UK prisons here: http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/
Good luck with your project

I'm not a lawyer and I don't have a job involved in this issue. I'm just a teacher who has an average knowledge about our law system. These are the things that I know about this topic:

Pity and forgiveness are characteristics of our culture. The department of justice must be filled with people who represent our characteristics very well since they have lots of pity and foregiveness to the criminals.

According our "infaz kanunu" (execution law) when a person gets a prison sentence in Turkia the actual stay is 30% of the sentence. This applies to every person and to every crime. For example if somebody is sentenced 20 years in prison for a murder he will stay only 6 years. This has been the case for ages.

The reason for this 30% rule is that our prisons were getting full and the government thought this was a nice solution. We didn't have enough prisons and sentences were not tough enough so the prisons were getting full easily.

Of course, as you can imagine this reduction only encourages crime and makes the prisons even more occupied. After all, if a criminal is released so fast what will happen most likely is that he will return to prison for another crime.

"No problem" the government thought. They had found another solution. The solution was to let all prisoners go home. We call this "af kanunu" (foregiveness law). It is a nation wide discharge of all criminals. This happens every few years and they simply release all prisoners.

If I remember correctly the last general discharge was in 2002 and they released all prisoners including rapists and murderers.

In other words, the murderers who were sentenced to 20 years and were supposed to stay 6 years did not actually stay so long because of nation wide discharge. The rapists who were sentenced 4 years (the sentence for rape is between 2 to 7 years according our law) were supposed to stay 14 months.

There was a man who shut dead 7 university students. It was a long time ago and it was a political crime. I don't know how long his original sentence was but he was supposed to stay 70 years actual in prison. This never happened. The reason for this is that every few years we had those discharge laws. With every new discharge law his sentence got lower and lower. At the end it was 19.5 years that he should stay for killing 7 people. The man was released by miscalculation after 17 years.

It is worth pointing that our law system is not focused on economical sentences to economical crimes. This means people who have condemned for economical crimes worth million dollars get only a prison sentence most of the time. You know already by know what a prison sentence means. It is a joke.

A few years ago some bank owners decided to give away huge credits to their own firms which would never pay back the credits. At the end their banks got bunkrupt, their firms got rich and the money of the bank costumers vanished. The government was responsible to pay all the money back to account holders. At the end the crime was huge. It was something around 10 billion dollars I think. The bank ovners got away with this. Some of them stayed a year in prison.

From the above you have an idea how the system works or doesnt work but what is it being in the prison? It is basically a huge room full with beds for around 20 or 25 people. We call these prison cells "koğuş". The newcomers to the koğuş are supposed to serve tea to the boss. The bigger the crime the better credibility you have in there. If you are a murderer you will have more power in there. If you are a murderer and a leader of a gang of part of any organized crime there is a good chance you might be the boss of the cell.

The boss has the power. If any other prisoner doesn't respect this power he will just get killed in prison this time by professional murderers. This doesn't mean there are many murder cases in prisons. No there probably aren't because prisoners simply obey the power of the boss.

There is a huge problem with this system. When you put 25 people in the same room where they live, eat and cook together (all cells have a mini kitchen) than every sort of things can happen. 25 men in one room, would you like to be in this situation?

If I was a prisoner I would prefer being in a cell on my own. On the other hand this almost never happens because we don't have many modern prisons. The old fashioned ones were easier to build.

Because the prisons are supposed make the prisoner a better person when he leaves the Turkish stytem of imprisonment is totally wrong.

Usually what happens is that a person gets into prison for a minor crime and while in prisons he learns major crimes.

To put terorists into the same cell is obviously the worst thing that you can do but they did. At the end the terorists were teaching others how to make a bomb. The officials can never step inside the cells in old fashined prisons. The prisoners in cells have knives they have a gas tube which they turn into a weapon (the same as the fire machines America has used in Vietnam). Once they had to send the army to a prison who had to break down walls because the authority had lost control over the cells completely. They found dummy rifles made out of woods. The terorists were giving military training inside the cells with these toy rifles and they were teaching how to use other guns and how to make a bomb.

Basically the prisons are scary because anything can happen there to you and nobody will do anything about it.

You might be an ordinary citizen. One day you write a cheque and you don't check your bank balance and at the end you could end up in prison with 24 other criminaly including murderers, rapists, thieves etc. and then you make tea to those people.

Recently the government decided to build new prisons where the cells are much smaller. These have cells for one or two people. Interestingly there was huge opposition because the teror criminals think the authorities will harm them if they are not as a group in one cell.

Although Erdinc you are correct in your statements, the Türkçe prisons etc are a joke you missed one vital comment.
Türkçe officers make their own rules as they go along. If they decide they want to beat a prisoner, that is exactly what happens, whether the prisoner has done something wrong or not.

Türkiye has one of the highest and worst cases on officers going. There was even a film made on it once called 'Midnight Express'(about a 20 year old man from the UK sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug smuggling).

There are several of these cases that are reported all the time, but it seems the officers still get away with it.
Here are some links to stories that prove officers in Türkiye are not so great themselves. Like Erdinc said it's a joke!
http://www.geocities.com/athens/oracle/7823/prisons3.html

I watched the movie "Midnight Express" and it is film made on purpose to slander Turkia. It is not a realistic film.

On the other hand I agree with you about more control over officials. In the UK on TV there is a childrens program called balamory. It is a very popular program. Every child watches balamory. One of the main characters is a police officer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/balamory/plum/index.shtml

Something like this would never happen in Turkia. They need to work harder to improve the image of police.

well, midnight express is a biased but still good movie. yes it is a good movie on prison system in turkey.

You misunderstood my intention about the example of Balamory. In the UK police is loved even by the children. It is a highly respected job. Everybody trusts the police and if a mom and her children had been walking in a park and they come accross to a police officer probably they would smile to the police or would say hello or the children might want to play with the police. In any case they would never feel uncomfortable.

In Turkia this would never happen. They would also never use a police character in a childrens film. Some ordianry citizens would change their way as they walk on street if they see a police officer.

In Balamory, the police officer sings songs together with children and he dances. This is so unusual for us Turks.

Here I found a video of this police character:
http://www.rafclan.platinumwebhosts.biz/plum.wmv

If this film had been in Turkia they would probably arrest the actor and filmakers for making fun of police. A police singing a childrens song is just so unimaginable.

I know you can't tar everyone with the same brush, but i believe the police in england today do not have the same respect they had a few years back.I know they do a very difficult job and there is good and bad in all professions, but in my opinion a lot of the police don't deserve respect.Most i have come across in my work are are very arrogant and self opinionated.I do not respect them like i use to

It seem I was wrong about the British police.

please do not change the topic i asked info about prison not the police :0

The prison system in England is a joke!and for a long time has been the laughing stock,there are gym's,sports rooms,computer rooms,paid jobs(albeit low)but paid jobs and you can even study for a degree in the prison system here for flips sake,whilst on the outside 'normal'students are struggling to pay their university fees,i'm thinking of going to prison myself it's easier than the outside.At christmas they get a 5 course lunch,most old people here struggle to buy a Turkey!,and they are wondering why the prison system in the UK is overflowing with inmates?up to me Turkish nick,bucket,soap,blanket and a bed for 20 odd years,midnight express style(is there no truth at all in that film?)re-offenders may not apply

Sorry to put the topic back to the police and i would help you if i could about your request for information on prisons but I really must stand up for the police and point out that as there are thousands of police officers in England, Wales and Scotland. The people on this site have obviously only met a small minority who maybe do have the bad traits identified by them and whilst I do not defend this I would point out they can only speak about a minority!I can speak for the majority and know hand on heart that they will fight tooth and nail for justice for everyone regardless of their creed or colour.The job is dangerous at times but and can be thankless it would be a terrible world without them.And as for Balamory children need to see the police as someone they can go to in a time of need and if a cartoon encourages this then all the better.As i said aplogies for going back to that topic but I had to redress the balance and i would say erdinc your view was correct in the first place.

any 1 know about prisons in Canada?

here is a link for canadian prisons: http://www.cbc.ca/prison/index.html

Your lucky I'm so bored any other countries let me know, glad to help

thanks kai

i need espcially information about Canadian prisons!
thanks

i need espcially information about Canadian prisons!
thanks

I hope this helps you it is a website where you can ask questions about Canadian Prisons and they have a list of frequently asked ones.
www.torontoghosts.org/prison.htm

Now I have done that part can i just thank christine for amending her slanderous remarks that all police officers are racist.I know at the very least one that isn't!And the majority are the same.So please don't delude our fellow TC members please.You may scare them away from approaching them should they ever need to!

Just one more post about he police in the UK. I am afraid I join the majority here with a very low opinion of the police force in England. We had a recent case where three young women were rammed in their car from behind by three men in a car. The girls stopped and the men got out of the car and beat up two of the girls. One week later the police had still not been to take statements because they were on the border of two counties - they couldn't deviced which police force should investigate. Therefore the men have got away with it.

Sorry, let me at the Raki!!

We spend more per capita on prisoners/prisons in America than we do on public school students/education.

It is one of our largest growing industries.

hmmmmm..... :-S

Thanks for the invite Christine but having read all yout caustic comments about police officers I will not bother to read it again.Yes I did find your comments offensive aenigma but I did not it was based on your experiences and just had to add my comments from someone in the know. If that makes me a smart XXX then so be it!I only wanted to redress the balance with positive opinions about our police officers so members of TC would not get a one sided view.

Now once again I apoligise that this is not about the initial thread and I will not be posting on it again so sorry Christine!