TURKEY

žTÜRKIYE Istanbul-Elazig-Tunceli-Ankara. Ankara-Istanbul.

One of our participants is the manager of Tunceli prison ,so he was happy to invite us to “his” prison.  Tunceli prison , which is a  A-3 type Closed Regime Penal Institution, was built in 1960 and has been in operation since then.

The capacity is 60 inmates. The main building consists of 5  wings, library, canteen ,barber, medical room, kitchen and storage rooms.

In the prison there are inmates sentenced to 7,5 years or less and the inmates have not committed organized crimes.

There are at the moment 5 inmates studying open elementary school, 7 studying open high school and 1 higher education.

The teachers come to the prison during certain hours and have their prison job as a part time combined with the other part of their regular work.

There are no regular prison schools in prisons in Turkey, however, the inmates have the opportunity to study at different levels and those who are illiterate are provided with literacy courses.

The educational activites of primary and secondary school taking place in prisons are under the supervision of the Ministry of Education  and higher education is under the supervision of Higher Education Institution.

We were showed around this little prison and were all happy to say that there seemed to be a good atmosphere between the guards and the inmates and although the prison was old the conditions gave nothing to complain about.

After two days we left for Ankara. Ankara is a big city and the capital of Turkey( it may not be as big as Istanbul which has around 12 million inhabitants, Ankara only has around 3, 5). 

          The prison was new and we were given the tour around seeing everything from furniture making for other prisons, to computer classrooms, to workshops, and we were served a brilliant lunch that could compete with any restaurant in town.