Agent work among prisoners under communism in Poland. Through the eyes of insiders.

• In Event: EHC-WG Panel 3: Police and Sanctions in Historical Context

Abstract

During the communist era in Poland, prisons were dangerous places, overcrowded and full of aggression. The task of punishment was not rehabilitation but elimination of the criminal from society for many years and the use of repression as a revenge for the evil he had done to that society. The philosophy of prison security was based on the recognition of the prisoner as a dangerous enemy. In 1973, 130,000 prisoners were guarded by only 16,000 Prison Service officers. In order for them to be able to control them they were equipped with machine guns, batons, gas, dogs and shackles, but they were also allowed to conduct agent work among the prisoners. On the basis of interviews conducted with retired officers conducting this work in those years, I will try to answer the questions (among others): how they recruited informants, what they could offer them in exchange for information, what they most wanted to learn from them, and whether the informant-prisoners conducted their own games on this occasion.

Author

• Kamil Miszewski, University of Warsaw