Bitlis province prisons (1908-1918)

After the criminal behavior, which is a concept as old as the history of humanity, is committed, a legal process is initiated against the perpetrator of the crime. The perpetrator as a suspect is first detained as a prisoner until this process is concluded. If the crime is finalized, the perpetrator is sentenced to be kept in prison for as long as he is convicted. Prisons are places where punishment for crime is institutionalized. The transition from dungeon to prison within the Ottoman Empire is a process that started with the Tanzimat Period. After the proclamation of the Tanzimat Edict, some changes were brought up in the penitentiary system. Regarding the improvements to be made in the Ottoman prisons, efforts were made to act in line with the proposals of experts brought from Europe and their reports on the improvement of the existing prisons by taking the European prison system into consideration. Concrete reform steps related to prisons started to be taken during the reign of Abdulhamid II and considerable strides were made when the Union and Progress Party was in power as well as during the Second Constitutional Era. The Province of Bitlis, having complex religious and ethnic population structures, is an important region close to the eastern border of the country where Russian and British imperialist goals intersected. Before and during World War I, the Province of Bitlis lost its economic vitality and the population within its borders decreased significantly due to the Armenian resistance movements in the region, the Bitlis Incident which took place in 1914, forced migration in 1915 and the Russian invasion in 1916. All sanjak and district prisons in the province of Bitlis (the Central Sanjak of Bitlis, Genç, Muş and Siirt sanjaks; Ahlat, Hizan, Mutki, Çapakçur, Kulp, Bulanık, Malazgirt, Sason, Varto, Eruh, Garzan, Pervari and Şirvan districts) between 1908-1918 were examined in the study. The main purpose of the research is to determine the effects of the prison reform attempts desired to be made during the Second Constitutional Era on the provincial prisons of Bitlis by following the Ottoman modernization within the Ottoman prison system in the case of an institution and a province. In addition, it was tried to analyze and detect, at the academic level, the changes in the physical conditions of the prisons and the social lives of the prison staff and inmates as a result of the reform efforts. The success and failure in the efforts were tried to be revealed.