Prisons in the late Ottoman Empire : : microcosms of modernity / / Kent F. Schull.

• VerfasserIn: Schull, Kent F.,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press,, 2014.
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire : ESOE
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xiii, 226 pages) :; digital, PDF file(s).
• Notes: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

The Western world stereotypically associates Ottoman or 'Turkish' prisons with images of torture, narcotics and brutal sexual behaviour. Now, Kent F. Schull argues that these prisons were actually a site of immense reform and contestation during the 19th century. It was within these prisons' walls that many of the pressing questions of Ottoman modernity were worked out; questions of administrative centralisation, Islamic criminal law and punishment, gender and childhood, prisoner rehabilitation, bureaucracy, identity and social engineering. By juxtaposing them with the reality of prison life, Schull investigates how state-mandated reforms affected the lives of local prison officials and inmates. He shows how these individuals actively conformed to, contested and manipulated new penal policies and practices for their own benefit.

Table of Contents

Ottoman criminal justice and the transformation of Islamic criminal law and punishment in the age of modernity, 1839-1922 -- Prison reform in the late Ottoman Empire : the state's perspectives -- Counting the incarcerated : knowledge, power and the prison population -- The spatialisation of incarceration : reforms, response and the reality of prison life -- Disciplining the disciplinarians : combating corruption and abuse through the professionalisation of the prison cadre -- Creating juvenile delinquents : redefining childhood in the late Ottoman Empire.