Open prisons are low-security penitentiary institutions in which life conditions are less strict than in closed prisons, and where prisoners have more contact with the outside world. Despite sharing important features, some variations can be found in the model of open prisons in different countries. This article describes the Catalan open prison model, characterized by the fact that prisoners serve the sentence in full semi-liberty; that is, by day they work and spend time with their families or doing other activities, but return to prison to sleep. As a contribution to the comparative study of open prisons, I describe here how Catalan open prisons are run and discuss the concept of ‘openness’ with reference, above all, to the open prisons that exist in Scandinavian countries. This work shows that the degree of openness of open prisons varies considerably between different countries – therefore approaching community penalties or closed prisons in a greater or lesser extent – and suggests that the role that open prisons are granted in each penal system is part of the explanation.1 1)Marta Martí holds a PhD in Law (Criminology). Currently, she is working as an external consultant for the International Committee of the Red Cross in El Salvador and she is member of the Research Group in Criminology and Criminal Justice System of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain). This article is based on her PhD dissertation, ‘One foot in and one foot out: serving a prison sentence in an open prison’, which was accepted in November 2018 in Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain). The full version of the dissertation (in Spanish) can be found on the following link: https://repositori.upf.edu/handle/10230/36320. This article is part of the project ‘Ejecución y supervisión de la pena: calidad de la intervención, legitimidad y reincidencia’ (DER2015-64403-P), funded by the Spanish Government. AbstractÅbne fængsler har et lavere control-niveau end lukkede fængsler og indsatte i åbne fængsler har mere kontakt til verden uden for fængslet. Trods mange ligheder findes der også en del forskelle imellem åbne fængsler i forskellige lande. I denneartikel præsenteres åbne fængsler i Catalonien. Disse er kendetegnet ved at de indsatte rent faktisk nyder delvis frihed. Det indebærer, at de i dagtimerne går på arbejde uden for fængslet eller tilbringer tid sammen med deres familie eller er beskæftiget på anden måde i lokalområdet. Om aftenen vender de tilbage til fængslet og tilbringer natten dér. I artiklen sammenlignes de catalanske åbne fængsler med åbne fængsler i Skandinavien. Sammenligningen viser, at der er store forskelle i graden af åbenhed i åbne fængsler, nogle steder ligger de tættere på samfunds-straffe og andre steder langt tættere på lukkede fængsler. Der argumenteres for, at en del af forklaringen her på er, hvilken rolle i det samlede nationale straffesystem de åbne fængsler har i forskellige lande.

offers a complete analysis of contemporary penal supervision in the community in Scotland and England and Wales, with references to the North American and European contexts. The aim of this book is to make the supervisory forms of punishment in the community visible, which, according to the author, have been insufficiently observed in academic and public discussions of criminal justice. In order to do so, McNeill -who has previously been a practitioner in criminal justice social work -draws on an academic analysis and creative methods, such as story-telling and photography.The book begins placing the reader in the waiting room of a community supervision service, where Joe, the main character of this short story, is waiting to meet his supervisor for the first time. Joe, a 49 year-old man sentenced to penal supervision for 18 months, is anxiously waiting, inspecting the room and wondering 'what she would be like -Pauline -the unknown woman who now held the keys of his freedom' (p. 2). Each of the seven chapters of the book starts with a short story about Joe's case from different points of view (including the supervisor's perspective, that of the supervision service manager and the supervisee himself), which is used to 'bring to life' (p. 3) the different aspects of mass supervision.Chapter 1 highlights two main ideas: (1) supervision is a pervasive punishment, not only because it pervades the lives of those who are supervised, but also because it extends all through society; and (2) the effects of community supervision (both on individuals and society) are diffuse and unobserved, partly because supervision is hardly deemed as a punishment. Chapter 2 provides the conceptual framework to understand the evolution of mass supervision. It emphasises that in order to make sense of penal change it is necessary to analyse not only the distal influences on penalty (economic, social, cultural and political changes in society) but also the more proximate influences (how each system generates and circumscribes, governs and deploys penal power) and local influences (how distal and proximate influences are moderated by the specific characteristics of the system). Chapter 3 illustrates the amount and dispersion of mass supervision drawing on data on incarceration and community supervision rates in the US and Scotland. Chapter 4 explores how supervision has been legitimated in policy and practice discourses and how it has adapted to changing social conditions. Chapter 5 853996E JP0010.