The guards

The guards

The guards were called the Lords of the Prisoners because of their brutality and corruption towards the treatment of the prisoners. The guards allowed improvements to be made to the treatment of the prisoners prisoners but only for a bribe. This meant that prisoners could receive food from outside or get out of the cell for a few hours.

For some time, was so profitable being a guard that it even became common practice to have "deputies". This tradition was later banned. The guards had to continuously prevent attempts to escape and break up the fights that arose between the desperate people locked up in such conditions. Guards had low salaries because prisoners paid the jailers for their needs. The jailers then received a percentage of the various justice costs that the prisoners had to pay directly to the Republic.

If a prisoner escaped, the guards, if their negligence was proven, could lose the deposit they had to pay at the time of recruitment. However, they could face much more severe penalties as a result of more serious failings.