Prison from a Religious Point of View

The issue of imprisonment in the contemporary world has been one of the complexities of the judicial system. The governments are faced with many problems in civil law,private law and common law.The issue of imprisonment not only has resulted in not preventing crimes but rather it has created more problems and crisis in different parts of man’s life in general and among the family law in particular.From a religious point of view there is no restriction in making good use of prisoners to work.On the other hand imprisonment is not considered a common way of punishment in Islamic law.Yet there are more than 400 cases which law makers have considered prison as a punishment,therefore it is necessary to analyze and study the imprisonment law, particularly law related to a person in debt should not be considered as a criminal.In this article the nature of the crime and the necessity of prison as a punishment,the history of imprisonment and it’s legal ground in Islam as well as a among religious scholars are studied.Also the implication of prison as a punishment in laws and its detrimental effects on family and society are analyzed.According to Quranic verses, traditions of the Prophet(P.) and his successors which emphasis on reformatory policies in a judiciary system and penal law code, preventing crimes are also emphasized.