were not allowed access to prisons.8 In order to survive, the prison system had to initiate the process of reform itself. Between 1980-1981 there were more than one hundred prison riots. The "Solidarity" movement empowered correctional officers and prisoners with self-respect and made them conscious of their specific rights. Although the flow of information and the activities of prisoners were abruptly curtailed with the imposition of Marshall Law, both prison staff and prisoners agree that the reforms that began in 1986 were the result of the "Solidarity" movement.9 In 1987 the Director General of the Polish Prison Administration addressed the Parliament. Although making it clear that he did not wish to criticize State criminal policy, he noted that if a person serving six years in prison could be employed outside prison facilities and if there were 30,000 such workers who could leave prison daily without becoming a burden for social security; then other punitive measures should be considered. In presenting this argument the Director revealed prison statistics never before revealed to the public.10 The statistics showed that the Director General oversaw an army of 200,000 prisoners, the majority of whom were under twenty-five years of age and had little or no education or professional training. The average length of imprisonment was twenty-three to twenty-seven months, but young offenders often served from four to ten years. As ex-prisoners there were few state enterprises where they could work given that most would not hire ex-convicts. The policy remained one of revolving doors with a growing number of recidivists. In 1987 over 100,000 people were imprisoned in Poland, but in 1988 the number had dropped to 67, 824. Beginning in 1986, one could also observe changes in prison personnel. Top administrators were no longer high ranking military officers but civilian judges. Re-socialization as a penitentiary goal which began in 1956 was again taken seriously and prisoners work was now accompanied by school programs. There were constant debates between academics working on prison reform and prison staff. The media were bringing information about prisons and prison reform from all over the world and the administrations began to inform the public more about problems within the prison system. The idea of prison reform, although present since the 1950s, was being implemented. THE FIRST CHANGES The prison administration managed in the late 1980s to convince the Prosecutor General to introduce a new policy towards women. For many years, offenses committed by Polish women constituted about ten to eleven percent of the crime rate or a total of about 5,000 prisoners. Given that prison administrators were desperately looking for new space for men who provided a more attractive workforce, a new humanitarian trend in penal policy toward women was initiated. The new regulations were to sentence women to isolation only in exceptional cases and to release them on bail whenever permitted by law. This experiment produced an interesting result. At the end of the 1980s there were approximately 2,000 women in prison while statistics still showed that females still continued to commit an average share of ten to eleven percent of all criminal offenses. Despite reducing the prison population by over 3,000 prisoners, the crime rate remained stable; illustrating, as well, the lack of correlation between the number of crimes committed and those sentenced to imprisonment. 8 The author, together with several other colleagues including the newly appointed Director in 1989 were on the so called "black list" suppressing access to prison, and information concerning prisons. We were literally not allowed to enter the prison, but not placed in any imminent danger of imprisonment for activity we carried out at the University or graduate level. 9 PLATEK, Monika (1990); Prison Subculture in Poland. "International Journal of the Sociology of Law" 18:463 10 Polish Parliament's Bulletin Nr 315/IX Term:9 22 OSCE ODIHR Bulletin Vol. 4 No. 3