Prison spaces in Slovenia

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Prison design and housing conditions: Implications for detained persons, policymakers, and the community

Abstract

There is a growing significance of the dimensions of spatiality in criminological and prison research. Studies researching the dynamics of space focus on prison layout and design, prison borders and their porosity, and place-making processes in prison. Despite such a proliferation of prison research, no such studies have yet been conducted in Slovenian prisons.
Slovenian prisons fall under the umbrella of “Slovenian exceptionalism” in that they have consistently retained an explicitly rehabilitative orientation. They are typically small, cohesive institutions set in the countryside. They are also specific in the sense that many of the buildings in which they are housed were not built for this specific purpose; these are often older buildings originally built for other uses, such as castles or nunneries. In this context, building a new prison on the outskirts of the capital of Slovenia, which is currently underway, is an interesting exception. Furthermore, it brings the questions of space and its issues in the Slovene prisons to the foreground.
In this paper, I will relate the various strands of spatial prison research to the specific context of Slovenian prisons. I will discuss the spatial characteristics of prisons in the Slovenian context in relation to the penal politics which have played a role in their establishment. I will present a preliminary plan for conducting empirical ethnographic research on this topic in Slovenian prisons.

Author

• Alina Bezlaj, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law Ljubljana