Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

Scouting is a system that developed at the beginning of the last century and is now entering the era of information society. A sense of brotherhood increases the feeling of security. Scouting is a proposal for an upbringing based on active and compassionate values related to relationships with others, for others and for self-improvement and the common pursuit of the ideal. Scout activity, his willingness to serve, experience and interact with other brothers scouts around their world promotes the opening of values in their different dimensions.

This study is the result of many years of permanent observation of the broadly understood area of security and the area of penitentiary science that is strictly connected with it. Due to the complexity of the undertaken considerations, the author of the study decided to emphasise a certain space, which is of an extremely significant value for utilitarian reasons. However, the issue in question has never been fully described in literature. The conducted research and the data obtained as a result indicate unequivocally that there is a need to examine the management of security systems in penitentiary institutions in Poland by a thorough analysis of its individual components.

The aim of the research was to analyse letters written by prisoners so as to discover what the penitentiary space means to them. The practical goal was to show the usefulness of employing epistolography in assessing the quality of social and living conditions and to evaluate the quality of penitentiary practices in the context of prisoners’ needs, as well as to unmask the hidden re-education programme. The article is based on the results of the content analysis of 26 anonymised letters written by prisoners who for the first time serve a sentence in Polish closed regime prisons. The collected research material was subjected to a framework analysis supplemented by an emergent technique. The analysis of prison letters indicates a generally critical assessment of the quality of the practices carried out and their accuracy in relation to the prisoner’s rehabilitation needs. The letters reveal also the existence of a hidden re-education programme. The use of the epistolary corpus in the description of the penitentiary space may result in the improvement of the current penitentiary methods. A thorough analysis of prison letters indicate areas that require change or the application of specific solutions that may contribute to the rationalization of penitentiary practices.

The energy security of the Visegrad Group countries is a derivative of their energy potential resulting from the lack of strategic natural gas and crude oil resources, limited fuel storage capacity and limited access to the transmission network. This causes a dependence on supplies of raw materials from Russia, which is not even, but applies to each of these countries. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have small deposits of natural gas and crude oil. Hungary and Poland have greater potential, but it is still not enough to achieve energy independence. The energy market of the V4 countries is of interest to the Russian Federation, but it is not a priority for it as it accounts for a small part of Russian transmissions. Russia aims to keep the market for crude oil and natural gas at a uniform level, but the actions of the V4 countries in terms of diversification of supplies, aimed at increasing the level of energy security, effectively hinder the implementation of this goal. The threat to the energy security of the V4 countries is related to their dependence on gas supplies from Gazprom. The terms of the contracts contain unfavorable clauses that negatively affect the sale of surplus Russian gas, as it is necessary to pay fees for the ordered gas regardless of the scale of its use. The differentiation in the energy policy of the Member States is also worth noting. An example is the lack of clear opposition from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia to the plans to expand the Nord Stream and Turkish Stream gas pipelines. These states show interest in participating in projects, which, in fact, constitute the implementation of the Russian concept of building new transmission routes. Poland takes a different position, consistently preventing the implementation of Russian energy projects.

Security of societies has become one of urgent issues in contemporary world. Too frequently we started encountering one or another form of malicious behavior, criminal activities or terrorism. New and complex threats highlight the need for further synergies and closer cooperation at all levels. Awareness, preparedness and resilience of societies emerge as key preconditions of further secure and sustainable economic development and general well-being. A special attention in those conditions has to be paid to development of theoretically grounded approach to protection of critical infrastructure (CIP), damage or disruption of which can be immensely harmful to unprepared and therefore vulnerable institutions and society. The aim of this paper is to lay theoretical foundations for theoretically grounded approach towards research in CIP area, in order to formulate, ultimately, an approach towards action, which, employing leadership societal stakeholders would allow to enhance awareness of society actors about the threats, i.e, to develop ability to recognize, prevent, and, in case of disaster, to resist to consequences of critical infrastructure infringement. Hence, enhanced resilience of society to critical infrastructure infringement is and ultimate goal of fostering of leadership for critical infrastructure protection.