Original scientific paper
Penal legislation and the system of penitentiaries and correctional institutions in the Independent State of Croatia
Davor Kovačić
Abstract
Based on a research of archive materials and available literature, the paper discusses the penal legislation and the penitentiary system in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). In addition to regular courts, there were also war courts and courtmartials as non-regular courts in the territory of NDH. The minister of justice and religious affairs was in charge of the entire highest central administration and supervision of the penitentiaries and correctional institutions in the Independent State of Croatia, while a special department was formed within the ministry of justice and religious affairs that was in charge of the activities of the penitentiaries and correctional facilities and technical issues associated with sentence serving. At the moment when NDH was formed, there were four men’s penitentiaries: in Lepoglava, Hrvatska Mitrovica, Stara Gradiška and Zenica, and there was one women’s penitentiary in Zagreb. There were four correctional institutions for children and younger juveniles: the Correctional Institution for Children and Younger Juveniles in Pahinsko near Ivanec, men’s institutions in Glina and Gospić, and the Correctional Institution for Children and Younger Juvenile Girls in Požega. Immediately after the establishment of NDH, a systematic and rational concentration of convicts was undertaken with the goal of minimizing the state’s expenditures. Efforts were also made to endow the penalty of depriving persons of their liberty, in addition to repression and prevention, also with a correctional significance, so that the criminal, after having served his sentence, could return from the penitentiary into the society as a rectified man and become its useful member.
Keywords
Independent State of Croatia (NDH); Slavonia; penal legislation; correctional institutions; crime
Hrčak ID:
43721
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2008.
Visits: 4.381 *