Prisons of Lithuania and United Kingdom

A prison or a jail is a special place where convicted or arrested people, who waits for a trial, are kept. The trim there is strict, because convicted people are bad and they must be looked after carefully and responsibly. There are a lot of jails all over the world. Systems of lithuanian and british prisons are very similar. Special fact is that there is just one real prison in Lithuania that is called Lukiskių inquest isolator- the prison. Others are called penitentiary or workhouse and etc.
There are more than 85,000 prisoners in about 160 jails in UK. Reception methods here are similar like in Lithuania. All prisoners pass through a reception where they are checked, their identities and other things. They are given special clothes. After that they must see a nurse, who checks healthy boucle, use of drugs or other medication. In Lithuania is the same, apart from this that lithuanian prisoners do not wear special clothes, but common like everybody.
Accommodation conditions are better in UK. There are single cells and dormitories. There are showers, recreation areas, food survery, toilets in cells and TVs. Most of cells are modern, tidy and comfortable to live. But cells of Lukiskes prison look likle small smelly toilets with a bed. They are too small for a normal living.
UK's prisons have access to education: IT classes, cookerylessons, english lessons for foreigners. Jails offer a mix of course including professional qualifications.Convicts can study in Lithuania too. Education is free for them. Teachers and lectures come to prison to teach them every week.
Religion and faith are not forgetten. There multi-faith centres in prisons of UK. All prisoners can prey to their gods and take part in their religious mass or ceremonies. Sometimes faith makes them better and helps to survive in a jail. Religion mass are held in Lukiskes too. There is a russian church here.
Food is given 3 times per day in jails of UK. But a kitchen's budget is small, so food is common, but healhty. The same situation is in Lithuania, but in UK it is appointed 1,87 pounds per day and in Lithuania just 4,2 litas for each convict per day.
Exercise areas can offer gym equipment and sport hall. Sport helps to live healthy and sometimes to fight with drugs or other addiction. There is no gym in Lukiskrs, just walking areas.
Prisoners can be visited by their relatives. Visits take place in a designated room. Family visits with children are held once a month. Lithuanian visits system is very similar.
There are more than 100 children up to 18 months living in dedicated mother and baby units in the UK's prisons. It is appointed 17 pounds a week for a child support.
Some more facts about lithuanian penal institutions. There are about 11,000 convicts there. Living conditions are not so good as inforeign prisons. The building of Lukiskes is old and needs to be reconstrated. Lithuanian penal system is old fashioned and strict. Treatment of criminals is not appropriate.
Of course, either in Lithuania either in UK special rebilitation and adaptation programmes is going on in order to help criminals to save their humanity.

"Civil and public law" summary

Civil and public law differ a lot and these differences are clear in law systems of all countries. Public law solves problems between people and the state or between states and civil law solves problems between people within a country. Civil law categories are contracts, torts, trusts, probate, family law. Crimes, constitutional and international law are the categories of public law. Codified systems are modern inventions in todays law. Procedures of civil and public law are different.
Civil actions are started bu individual people. A plaintiff is a party who brings a civil action. The party against whom civil action starts is called a defendant. The court weighs all evidences and decides what is the most probable in a civil case. Such cases usually finishes deciding what amount of money or damages should a defendant pay to the plaintiff.
Criminal actions as usual are started by the state. The party who brings a criminal action is called a prosecution. Other party like in a civil case is a defendant. The guilt of a criminal must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. The standards of proof are high in a criminal action, because the defendant could be sentenced to pay a fine and even jailed or executed.
There are some contacts between civil and criminal law. If the loser of a civil case refuses to pay a fine or to award damages, he can be prosecuted and even jailed. In some countries people can complain about the violention of the human rights in some criminal cases.

“Criminal law “ summary

A crime is a wrong act against another human being or the state for which people can be penalized. Some acts can be considered as a crime or not in different countries.
A lot of systems of law have a principle of presumption of innocence. Two elements of a crime can be marked out: Actus Reus-an objective part of a crime and Mens Rea-a subjective part of a crime. All crimes have a substantial cause and most of them are committed malice aforethought. Defendants can defense themselves if they found some reasons why thay can not be sentenced.
Technical changes, differences between societies and governments are the most important reasons of the increase of crimes.

''Never Again" summary

People are still debating on capital punishment all over the world and opinions are very different. The first argument for capital punishment is the deterrence theory which would force murderers to think that they might also die if they were caught. Public security is very important, because a murderer, who is released from a prison, could be very dangerous for people. The argument of retribution or revenge says that a prisoner should suffer what he deserve. The last argument for is that keeping a murderer in prison is a wasting of taxpayers' money. But on the other hand, sometimes innocent people are wrongly convicted,so it would be unfair to punish them. The main argument against capital punishment is that it violetes human rights-nobody can take a life of anybody! Christianity requires forgiveness, but not a revenge and death penalty.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is the largest organization in the world which fights against violention of human rights. There are millions of it's memebers all over the world who are volunteers and try to help this organization to seek it's aims.
Amnesty International reaches to put pressure on governments to observe human rights. Furthermore, it seeks fair trials for political prisoners, an end to torture and inhuman treatment and the removal of the capital punishment.
This organization has started and is still going on with the compaign "Stop violence against women". It prevents, investigates and punishes acts of all forms of violention against women. Another campaign is called "Control Arms". It is calling for an international, legally-binding Arms Trade Treaty to ease the suffering caused by irresponsible weapons transers. The organization campaigns against poverty and human rights, the death penalty, economic globaliazation, child soldiers. It tries to help refugees and migrants and to implement international justice. It takes these acts: investigates the facts, expose the truth, mobilize Amnesty supporters and the public, create pressure for change, prevent violetion from taking place.Amnesty International is interested in some Lithuania's social problems such as people trading for illegal sexual use and living conditions of prisoners.
Amnesty International achieves a lot every year especially in releasing the prisoners of concience, for example: "Thai authorities recently released Sok Youm, a combodian opposition party member." " Annar Ibrahim was released after six years in prison." A lot of other achievements were reached and this gives inspiration to go on and on.
Amnesty Inernational is really useful and humane organization. It fights for human rights and the protection of them is the main aim of it.

My future profession

I study at Mykolo Romerio university. This is my first year here. I have always wanted to enter this university,because it is really good and keeps high standards and quality of teaching. Futhermore, the university is very modern and exclusive. I am very proud of being a student of this university.
I have chosen studies of law and penitentiary work. That means I want to be a lawyer or to work some kind of juridical work. I think law is interesting and attractive subject to study. Besides, it is very useful to gain knowledge about law nowadays,because there are so much unfairness and cruelty in our society. There is lack of people who fight against these negative phenomena. So I am going to do that and to try to make our future life better and easier.
I have decided to connect my future with law, so I hope that lawyer's profession will always be very popular, needful and promising. I will try to do my best in studying law, to take everything that the university can suggest to it's students in order to make my studies qualitative and meaningful and to become a professional lawyer. Wish me good luck!