Manisa Prison during the last periods of the Ottoman Empire (1890-1918)

Since the 19th century, important steps have been taken to correct the conditions that are not suitable for human health in the Ottoman prisons and to eliminate the inadequacy in terms of capacity. The transition from corporal punishment to prison came to the fore in this period, and problems such as the political events of the period and society's view of reforms prevented the improvement efforts on prisons from being realized at the desired level and made them worse. One of the most important problems in prisons has been the building problem. The fact that the buildings were insufficient and unhealthy according to the number of prisoners made it necessary to repair them or to build new ones. In the published regulations, it was decided to open local prisons in each province, district and livada, and in addition to these, to open public prisons in places to be determined, and to separate the prisoners according to their sentences, but it could not be implemented because there was not enough number and suitable situation. The necessity of living in a crowded place in inadequate buildings has brought along problems such as congestion, inadequacy in health conditions, and security. Although the state tried to solve these problems, recent political, social and economic problems have prevented this. In the last period of the Ottoman Empire, the Manisa prison is a typical example in terms of having all these negativities on it. In this study, it has been tried to give information about the physical structure, repair and construction of the Manisa township prison, the costs incurred for it, the convicts and detainees, the prison officers and their wages, by making use of the documents in various classifications in the Ottoman Archives of the Presidency of State Archives. In addition, the situation of the Manisa prison was tried to be revealed by making use of the copyrighted sources on the Ottoman prisons.