Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2019)
OVERCROWDING – CURRENT ISSUES IN ROMANIAN DETENTION CENTERS. CAUSES, EFFECTS AND REMEDIES
Abstract
The overcrowding phenomenon in detention centers generates serious issues with respect to the human dignity – corollary of the fundamental human rights. Both international legislation and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights relating to article 3 and 8 of the European Convention of the Human Rights address the issue of prison overcrowding, stating that this can lead to violation of fundamental human rights, causing severe physical and psychological trauma, which is aggravating as the prisoners spend more time in the detention center. If this issue wasn’t given much attention in the past, being considered an inevitable mental sufferance of the execution of punishment, respectively a reasonable constraint determined by the conviction, lately it has been approached more seriously, at both national and international level and, as a result, new standards are set for ensuring the protection of the fundamental human rights. The purpose of this study is to identify the problems that prison overcrowding generates for both the detainee, on a personal level, and for the detention centers, from the administrative point of view. Moreover, this study critically analyses the national and international evolution of the legislation and the national policies of the competent institutions and authorities in dealing with this issue. At the same time, the author offers practical legislative and administrative solutions which may lead to reducing the phenomenon of prison overcrowding.
