Punishment is a dual concept encompassing both moral condemnation of the offender and the element of hard treatment. "Hard treatment" refers to all the hardships an inmate faces while serving a prison sentence. Numerous authors discuss the necessity, justification, and functions of hard treatment, followed by the question of its amount. Differentiation in the level of hard treatment within prison reality is determined by various prison regimes. Legislation defines these regime differences rather narrowly, with more noticeable distinctions, leading to varying levels of hardship, emerging in the specific penal institutions. The issues of placement and transfer between prison regimes are also significant, with the sole legal criterion for such decisions being the length of the sentence.
Exploring the subjective experience of imprisonment reveals the pains of incarceration. Inmates report isolation from the outside world as the most painful aspect, with interpersonal and staff relations also greatly affecting their experience. The discomforts they endure within different regimes are largely similar, differing mostly in intensity. I reached similar conclusions during my visit to the Zavod za prestajanje kazni zapora Ig (Ig Prison Facility), where female inmates reported similar pains across all three regimes. They noted, however, that punishment is somewhat easier to bear in the open regime, although the sense of punishment and awareness of being in prison remain.
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