Prison Conditions in Czechoslovakia

The Helsinki Watch report summarized Czechoslovak prison conditions in 1988 as follows: Inmates are often packed into overcrowded, stuffy, smelly, filthy, dark cells that are too hot or too cold; guards brutally abuse them, physically and verbally; medical care is almost always grossly inadequate; food is usually meager, tasteless, and poor in nutrition. In many prisons homosexuality - both consensual and by rape -- is rampant; prisoners are terrorized by fellow inmates, often with the encouragement of the authorities who give the most hardened criminals official responsibility for discipline, order and work; disciplinary punishments are unfair and harsh; exercise and recreation are usually negligible; religious practices of any kind are prohibited. Political prisoners are often isolated and discriminated against; contacts with family and lawyers are few and subject to arbitrary cut-off. Self-mutilation, hunger strikes, and suicides are common. Even after inmates leave the prison, they continue to be persecuted and discriminated against in employment, by surveillance and in other ways. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the Czechoslovak prison system is the economic exploitation of the prisoner. Czechoslovakia treats its prison work force like slave labor, often imposing dangerously unhealthy and unsafe working conditions at minimal wages in order to produce goods for hard currency export and domestic consumption.

Legacy Link
In 1989, Helsinki Watch severely criticized conditions in the Czech prison system. The criticism was in a report prepared by Professor Herman Schwartz, Chairman of the Human Rights Watch Prison Project Advisory Committee, and was based on numerous interviews in early 1988 with recently released prisoners. After the November 1989 revolution and in response to the report, the Czech and Slovak governments invited Helsinki Watch to inspect prisons in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The results of the inspection were very encouraging. In 1988, whatever could be wrong with a prison system, could be found in the Czech system. Severe overcrowding, brutality and exploitation of every variety, inhumane living and working conditions, miserable medical care - all were reportedly there, and more. Things have dramatically changed. Although many problems remain, ranging from outmoded and inadequate physical facilities to continuing staff-inmate hostility and still unacceptable working conditions, most of the worst evils are gone. Perhaps even more encouraging is the attitude of the prison administrators who, like many prison authorities in other formerly Communist-dominated countries, seem genuinely committed to creating and maintaining a humane prison system. Nevertheless, serious problems remain and will be explored in the course of this report. Because problems remain, and because the prison authorities are eager to create a modern system that will be both efficient and humane, Helsinki Watch and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, together with the Czech and Slovak Ministries of Justice, are convening a conference and workshop in Czechoslovakia in 1991 that will bring prison experts from North America and Western Europe together with Czech and Slovak prison officials to discuss ways to modernize and humanize the Czechoslovak prison systems.