Experiences in the Szeged Strict and Medium Regime Prison on the implementation of long-term and life-long imprisonment

Abstract

Taking into account the life path of prisoners in terms of the care they are provided the enforcement of extreme long-term and real life-long imprisonment sentences have resulted in new challenges encouraging professionals to seek new professional solutions. The enforcement of the most severe sentence in the Hungarian legal system is a task incorporating several areas of science and expertise which specific objective can be defined as the law-abiding integration of such life-sentence prisoners into the prison community and also aiding their self-fulfilment within the limits of law. Such prison-life path of uncertain outcome spans over several decades through which the convict, the member of a closed prison community where prison officials guarding them are also their fellow passengers, go through emotional states and experiences that can only be guessed at but not foreseen. In our paper we attempt to introduce the history of the operation of the special long-term regime – currently named as special long-term unit – from the beginning of its operation to the present, its spirit, our practical experience through demographic data and other factual information as well as the thoughts of the prison psychologist and the prisoners.