ABSTRACT
This chapter that highlights the tensions and strains between reform and resistance in the Romanian penitentiary system. Cristina Dâmboeanu and Valentina Pricopie put emphasis on how prison staff perceptions and attitudes affect and influence the legal goal of detention. More precisely, Dâmboeanu and Pricopie examine prison staff perception in Romania from the perspective of a three-dimensional model – legal (including the European legal framework), traditional and moral – to describe staff beliefs about the aims of imprisonment in relation to the practice of human rights in prison. Based on a survey with 289 staff members from 15 Romanian prisons, they show that the main pillars of their perception remain legal and security dimensions, while the moral dimension (including human rights) is more valorized at personal level than at the professional community level. These findings have some implications on how to conceive the European influence on domestic prison practices.
