Penitentiary in Rawicz until 1989

Abstract

The subject of the analysis is the evolution of changes that have occurred over 170 years in the Penitentiary in Rawicz. There are two aims of the work: the identification of the most important changes that took place in the Rawicz Penitentiary, together with the explanation of how they influenced the evolution of the institution. Due to the topic specificity and focus on a specific time period, the analysis oscillates within the time limits from the establishment of the Penitentiary in Rawicz, i.e., 1819, up until 1989, i.e., the year ending the period of communist rule in Poland. The changes that took place in the Penitentiary in Rawicz were related to the adaptation of this unit to the current needs of the ruling elites. To a large extent, they focused on infrastructural changes in relation to a given target group (e.g., political prisoners) and were naturally linked to the law enacted by government bodies, which contributed to the development of the unit in a specific direction. The indicated changes and the current legislation of the partitioning powers at that time undoubtedly contributed to the development of the facility and its more efficient functioning (in the context of the realities of those times).