Excerpt from the Introduction: "Interest in penal matters in Germany and in Austria-Hungary centres rather in the nature and number of persons who commit crimes than the methods pursued in bringing them to justice or the places in which penalties have been imposed. The character and extent of crimes committed from time to time, attracts us more generally than the prisons designed and established for their punishment. This is the more marked because such prisons have not achieved any remarkable prominence or notoriety. They have been for the most part the ordinary institutions used for detention, repression and correction, more noted for the offenders they have held than their own imposing appearance, architectural pretensions, or the changes they have introduced in the administration of justice. Only in more recent years, since so-called penitentiary science has come to the front and the comparative value of prison systems has been much discussed, have certain institutions risen into prominence in Germany and become known as model prisons."