The Law of Penitentiary Cities

Before the juridical setting establishing a juncture between penalties and security measures formally entered into penal codes, the latter already existed as a penitentiary practice and impacted on the design of new types of confinement institutions. A fine example of this can be found in the German penitentiary of Brandeburg Havel-Görden, the construction of which started in 1933, a few years before the penal code that consecrated the security measures in Germany was published, and finished in 1935. Similarly to the congresses of criminal anthropology of the late nineteenth century, in which attendants were guided in study excursions throughout the diverse archetypical sites of the criminal anthropological knowledge – the prison, the asylum for the mentally ill and the museum – in the penitentiary congresses of the interwar period, congressmen were given a tour of the penitentiary institutions considered as the most important by the official authorities. During the Berlin congress, the visit to the Brandenburg penitentiary undoubtedly constituted the highlight of that excursion. In the procedures of the congress we can read as follows: