Sociologie za mřížemi? Penitenciární sociologie v České republice
Sociology Behind Bars? Penitentiary Sociology in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to introduce discipline of penitentiary sociology, discuss its forms in the context of the Czech Republic, and answer the question of why sociologists do not participate in everyday practice behind bars of Czech prisons even though they have formal ties with this environment. The findings presented in this paper are based on qualitative research conducted in Czech prisons. The data corpus includes qualitative interviews with selected actors in the prison world and an analysis of relevant documents relating to the research topic. Sociology and the prison system meet on two basic levels in the Czech Republic. As an external partnership that seems to have grown stronger over the years and as an internal bond that has weakened (and almost been dismissed) since the end of the 1990s. Sociology has formally retained a place behind the bars of Czech prisons thanks to the sociologists who according to the regulations of the Czech prison service should figure among the prison staff. In reality, the initial enthusiasm for this practice faded over the years and there are no sociologists currently working in Czech prisons. In this paper the author presents some possible explanations for this, ofers a historical description of the (non)participation of sociologists in Czech prisons, and discusses the possibilities for the future development of Czech penitentiary sociology.

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