The fall of a guaranteed culture in the production of law

The case of mechanical restraints in prisons in Spain

Laburpena

This contribution intends to follow the "red thread" of a gradual and constant "devaluation" (in Spain) of the alleged guarantor paradigm of prison criminality. Despite the constitutionalization (in 1978) of the status of persons deprived of liberty, such devaluation has been occurring both in the field of law production and at the time of its interpretation and application. But in the last decade, this devaluation or reduction of the rights of prisoners has not only been accentuated, but a progressive process of "administrativization of penitentiary law" seems to have become naturalized which, by way of regulating the most important aspects of the life of prisoners (isolation, coercive restraints, penitentiary work, etc.), in simple ministerial orders, prison administration circulars and daily practices, has been demonstrating a marked departure from the principle of legality and the rule of law. This Paper investigates all this through the dramatic example of the so-called "mechanical restraint" of prisoners. This trend nullifies the democratic sense of punishment, its parliamentary debate, its judicial control and returns to a "prison autonomy" that must be investigated.