The Emancipation of Prisoners: A Socio-Historical Analysis of the Dutch Prison Experience - Herman Franke - Bog

Compared with most European countries, The Netherlands sends few of its convicted criminals to prison, and those who are imprisoned have more rights and better treatment than their European counterparts. In this seminal study, criminologist Herman Franke presents the 'Dutch case'. Examining imprisonment in The Netherlands from the end of the eighteenth century to the modern day, he gives a close historical and sociological analysis of the changing trends in the Dutch penal system, revealing the limitations of existing literature on the origins of imprisonment. He concludes that the work of Foucault, Ignatieff, Rothman and Rusch, and Kirchheimer fails to explain long-term developments that are typical of Western prison systems, and provides a sociological interpretation of these changes.