Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable. Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur are among the most well-known penal settlements on the island.
The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preacher Robert of Arbrissel. The foundation flourished and became the center of a new monastic Order, the Order of Fontevraud. This order was composed of double monasteries, in which the community consisted of both men and women — in separate quarters of the abbey — all of whom were subject to the authority of the Abbess of Fontevraud. The Abbey of Fontevraud itself consisted of four separate communities, all managed by the same abbess.
The penal colony of Cayenne, commonly known as Devil's Island, was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana.
Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels The Thief's Journal and Our Lady of the Flowers and the plays The Balcony, The Maids and The Screens.
Pianosa is an island in the Tuscan Archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy. It is about 10.25 km2 (3.96 sq mi) in area, with a coastal perimeter of 26 km (16 mi).
The concept of a carceral archipelago was first used by the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault in his 1975 publication, Surveiller et Punir, to describe the modern penal system of the 1970s, embodied by the well-known penal institution at Mettray in France. The phrase combines the adjective "carceral", which means that which is related to jail or prison, with archipelago—a group of islands. Foucault referred to the "island" units of the "archipelago" as a metaphor for the mechanisms, technologies, knowledge systems and networks related to a carceral continuum. The 1973 English publication of the book by Solzhenitsyn called The Gulag Archipelago referred to the forced labor camps and prisons that composed the sprawling carceral network of the Soviet Gulag.
Matthew Davenport Hill was an English lawyer and prison reform campaigner and MP.
Henri Charrière was a French writer, convicted in 1931 as a murderer by the French courts and pardoned in 1970. He wrote the novel Papillon, a memoir of his incarceration in and escape from a penal colony in French Guiana. While Charrière claimed that Papillon was largely true, modern researchers believe that much of the book’s material came from other inmates, rather than Charrière himself. Charrière denied committing the murder, although he freely admitted to having committed various other petty crimes prior to his incarceration.
Papillon is a fantastical novel written by Henri Charrière, first published in France on 30 April 1969. Papillon is Charrière's nickname. The novel details Papillon's purported incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony of French Guiana, and covers a 14-year period between 1931 and 1945.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a 1975 book by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It is an analysis of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind the changes that occurred in Western penal systems during the modern age based on historical documents from France. Foucault argues that prison did not become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of reformists. He traces the cultural shifts that led to the predominance of prison via the body and power. Prison is used by the "disciplines" – new technological powers that can also be found, according to Foucault, in places such as schools, hospitals, and military barracks.
Michel Jean Pierre Verne was a writer, editor, and the son of Jules Verne.
Mohamed Choukri (15 July 1935 – 15 November 2003, was a Moroccan author and novelist who is best known for his internationally acclaimed autobiography For Bread Alone, which was described by the American playwright Tennessee Williams as "A true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact".
Mettray Penal Colony, situated in the small village of Mettray, in the French département of Indre-et-Loire, just north of the city of Tours, was a private reformatory, without walls, opened in 1840 for the rehabilitation of young male delinquents aged between 6 and 21. At that time, children and adolescents were normally imprisoned together with adults. Aspects of the progressive way in which the Colony was organized anticipated the English borstal system established at the beginning of the 20th century.
Mettray is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department in central France. The Mettray Penal Colony was opened there in 1839.
Guillaume-Abel Blouet was a French architect who specialised in prison design.
Article 27 of the Panamanian constitution declares that the prison system of Panama is based on the principles of security, rehabilitation, and the protection of society. Provisions have been made to establish training programs designed to teach skills and trades that will afford prisoners the opportunity of reentering society as useful citizens after they complete their sentence. The same article also prohibits physical, mental, and moral abuse of prisoners. Juvenile offenders who are sentenced by a court are cared for in a special system that provides protection and education and attempts to rehabilitate them before they came of age. Women are also segregated in the penal system.
Rosamond Davenport Hill was a British educational administrator and prison reformer. She was the best known of three sisters who were the third generation of their familiy to take an interst in social reform. Her two sisters were Florence Davenport Hill and Joanna Margaret Hill. Rosamond took an interest in prisons, education and in the care of juvenile delinquents.
William Hendrik Dominicus Suringar (1805–1895) was a Dutch philanthropist who established the Netherlands Mettray, the equivalent of the French Mettray Penal Colony.
René de Buxeuil, pseudonym for Jean-Baptiste Chevrier, was a 20th-century French composer and chansonnier.
The penal colony of New Caledonia was a penitentiary establishment which was in operation from 1864 to 1924. Many French prisoners from mainland France were deported there.
