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Albania
Penal System
The communist regime maintained an extensive system of prisons
and labor camps, including six institutions for political prisoners,
nine for nonpolitical prisoners, and fourteen where political
prisoners served their sentences together with regular criminals.
Inmates provided the state's vital mining industry with an inexpensive
source of labor. In 1985 there were an estimated 32,000 prisoners
in the country.
Conditions in the prisons and labor camps were abysmal. Maltreatment
as well as physical and mental torture of political prisoners
and other prisoners of conscience were common. Sporadic strikes
and rebellions in the labor camps, to which the Sigurimi often
responded with military force, resulted in the death of more than
1,000 prisoners as well as the execution of many survivors after
they were suppressed.
Many political prisoners were purged party officials and their
relatives. Reflecting Hoxha's paranoia, some of them were resentenced
without trial for allegedly participating in political conspiracies
while in prison. Former inmates reported that they managed to
survive their incarceration only through the assistance of relatives
who brought them food and money.
Under Alia, several amnesties resulted in the release of nearly
20 percent of the large prison and labor-camp population, although
most of those released were prisoners over the age of sixty who
had already served long terms. In 1991, for example, the APL attempted
to improve its popularity by pushing a sweeping amnesty law for
political prisoners through the communistdominated People's Assembly,
and all such prisoners were freed by the middle of the year. The
amnesty law provided for the rehabilitation of those incarcerated
for political crimes, but not persons convicted of terrorist acts
that resulted in deaths or other serious consequences. Specifically,
it applied to persons sentenced for agitation and propaganda against
the state; participation in illegal political organizations, meetings,
or demonstrations; failure to report crimes against the state;
slandering or insulting the state; and absence without leave or
desertion from military service. It provided for material compensation,
including lost wages or pensions, for time spent in prison; for
preferential access to housing, education, and employment; and
gave compensatory damages to the families of political prisoners
who were executed or who died in detention without trial. Finally,
it established a commission that included members of the new,
independent Association of Former Political Prisoners to investigate
atrocities carried out by the state.
Data as of April 1992
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