Prison sentence in the 21st century

In this study, we analyze the features of modern imprisonment. The author, first of all, starts by pointing out the trend of penal populism which imposes a series of negative consequences for the entire social system and then evaluates five main theses related to criticism of the criminal sanctions which were indeed raised by Foucault with an aim to determine whether ultimately, today, something has been altered in the era of global integrations, self-proclaimed democratic societies and increasingly loud proclamations for the protection of human rights and freedoms. The following part of the study is committed to contemplating the positive and negative consequences of life imprisonment, as of latterly initiated punishment in the system of criminal sanctions of the Republic of Serbia, with an allusion to sole comparative law solutions.