460 prisoners with a PhD degree: ‘Academic confinement’

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According to the September data of the General Directorate of Prisons and Detention Houses, there are 460 prisoners with a PhD degree.

While the majority of the prisoners with a PhD degree are men, six are women with PhD degrees. Moreover, in Turkey's prisons, there are also 2,371 prisoners who have completed their MA studies.

The fact that there are over 2,000 prisoners with an MA degree shows the current dimensions of academic confinement as yet another phase of confinement in Turkey. So, while Boğaziçi University has 449 faculty members with a PhD degree, prisons have 460 prisoners with a PhD degree.

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'Open the door, warden; I have a thesis to defend'

This data prepared based on the information provided by the arrestees and convicts upon their imprisonment shows that academic confinement has been on the increase, too. The prisoners who have completed their thesis defense and got the approval of the jury seem to use the motto of "Open the door, warden; I have a thesis to defend" as a humorous expression.

The September data of the General Directorate of Prisons and Detention Houses has also shown that in addition to the prisoners with an MP and PhD degree, there are also 27,515 university graduates behind bars.

The number of convicted university graduates in prisons. Source: TurkStat

'27 thousand university graduates in prisons'

These days, when the new academic year has just started in Turkey's universities, the ones "outside" are having problems with finding housing while the 27 thousand university graduates "inside" are having problems with having free access to education.

According to the 2019 data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the number of convicts who are graduates of universities is around 20 thousand in Turkey's prisons. Taken together with the arrested prisoners, the picture reaches concerning dimensions.

On the other side, when the statistics of the TurkStat are examined, it is seen that there was a serious increase in the number of university graduate prisoners in the 8-year period from 2012 to 2019.

While the number of convicted university graduates in prisons was around 4 thousand in 2012, this number saw a 5-fold increase and reached 20 thousand. Based on the table, it can be concluded that either the university graduates have started committing more crimes in the last few years or the university graduates have been arrested more and more on different/ political grounds. (MO/TP/SD)