Promoting Change: Ethical Reforms in Prisons of Poland and Lithuania

This chapter is the result of research into ethical changes in the penitentiary systems of Poland and Lithuania. The authors made a comparative analysis of the changes that have taken place in the last 30 years in these two countries. Specific questions that the Authors tried to answer during their research were: how did the penitentiary systems of Poland and Lithuania change over the last 30 years? What legal and organizational issues did it tackle (from the viewpoint of ethical aspects)? How were the changes in the penitentiary systems of Poland and Lithuania evaluated by the international community? However, the overarching question was: to what extent is the change in penitentiary systems profound and to what extent is it just a facade? To what extent are the penitentiary systems of these states Westernized and to what extent still post-Soviet in nature?