Maksudyan, Nazan2021-05-152021-05-1520150020-74381471-6380https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743814001706https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12939/608In 1851 and again in 1918–19 British officials assigned to the Ottoman Empire conducted extensive inspections of the empire’s prisons and drew up detailed reports of what they found. Notwithstanding their imperialist and orientalist undertones, these reports describe Ottoman prisons as being in a serious state of disrepair.1 Stratford Canning, the famous British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, commissioned the 1851 inspections with the intent to assist the Ottomans in reforming their criminal justice system. He ordered British Foreign Office representatives stationed throughout the empire to undertake a comprehensive inspection of prisons in order to ascertain their deficiencies and to report back to him. Canning justified prison improvement and inspection according to civilisational principles: But in the present advanced state of human knowledge and public opinion no government which respects itself and claims a position among civilised communities can shut its eyes to the abuses which prevail. Or to the horrors which past ages may have left in that part of its administration which separate the repression of crime and the personal constraint of the guilty or the accused.2eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessLate Ottoman EmpireMicrocosms of ModernityHistoryReview Article10.1017/S0020743814001706471202204WOS:000354048600030Q1