1. The social and economic cost of Egypt's prison system
- Author:
- Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Legal Researcher and Lawyer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2022
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
- Abstract:
- Legal scholars have long been concerned with how to deter crime and limit its spread. For a long time, imprisonment has been used as a tool to serve these two purposes. On one hand, prisons function as a means to deprive inmates of their liberty and deter public and private crime. On the other hand, they also seek to reform convicts in a way that facilitates their reintegration into society by adopting appropriate rehabilitation programs for each prisoner.1 Despite the general deterrent impact of imprisonment, overreliance on such penalties can also have negative consequences – particularly when prisons fail to fulfil the rehabilitation component of their role. Prisons then risk turning into a hotbed that enables even more dangerous criminal behavior. As such, some legal scholars believe that penalties that deprive individuals of their liberties are no longer considered the best or only means to create more stable and secure societies, nor to reduce crime rates.
- Topic:
- Crime, Law, Legal Theory, and Legal Sector
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Egypt, and MENA