Sociological and legal aspects of "prison movies"

Abstract

The paper focuses on the cinematic depiction of the various problems of the European and the American penitentiary systems. The paper presents an analysis of two movies – one relating to civil European legal system and the other one from the area of American legal culture – on purpose. Our ambition was to compare two different approaches to prison theme and subsequently to illustrate the diversity of conditions in prisons facilities, the regress of individuals in “hostile” territory and others interesting but also unsettling consequences of life in prison.

Keywords

• movies
• prison
• prisoner
• legal problems
• punishment
• law and art