The Dealing with “dangerous” life-sentence inmates around the world and in Poland: Theoretical and practical problems

Perpetrators of murder sentenced to life imprisonment are usually considered dangerous because of the crime they committed. The prison administration classifies many of them as “dangerous” prisoners and places them under higher security, in line with “supermax prisons”. This is an interesting research topic since supermax conditions raise legitimate controversies, not only among researchers. The article presents an analysis of previous research on prisoners placed in supermaxes, the practice of dealing with dangerous prisoners in Poland and the results of research conducted on a group of 98 life-sentence prisoners classified as dangerous between 1995 and 2014.