In 2010, I completed the preparation of the monograph "The Penitentiary System of Ukraine: Historical Development, Current Problems and Prospects for Reform", which was subsequently published with the assistance of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, for which I express my deep gratitude to the management and employees of this service.

In 2020, the monograph "Penitentiary Policy as a Component of Social Control" was published.

The introduction to both publications began with the opinion of the prominent German scholar Ulrich Beck that "today, even the theoretical premises of the 'welfare state' and 'social security' are melting under the scorching sun of globalisation and being moulded into forms that make political influence possible in the relevant areas of social relations. What passes for the universalism of the Western Enlightenment and human rights is nothing more than the voice of "dead, old white men" who infringe on the rights of minorities while elevating their party's "meta-narrative" to the absolute."

When I presented this non-standard thesis for the national legal science as the main idea of my publication of ten years ago, I made an undisguised emphasis on the fact that the national legal science - already at that time - had exhausted itself in its attempt to identify the problems of the use of punitive practices, as well as the problems of the penitentiary system, not to mention the ways and methods of solving such problems. The main reasons for this penological "exhaustion" were and still are the conservatism of legal science and its self-isolation from globalisation trends and influences.

At the time, I was aware that Beck's thesis was both concise and meaningful, and reflected the problem of domestic penalty best of all. However, later it turned out that this thought was also a forecast of the near future of penal theories and practices - and not only Ukrainian ones.

However, I could hardly have imagined that this very idea of Beck's would become the concentrate of the subject field of my research on penitentiary policy as a component of social control in ten years. Likewise, I could hardly have imagined that it was Beck's thought that would set the agenda for the study of penitentiary systems, which could no longer be considered isolated national penological aquariums and remain aloof from globalisation processes.

In the mid-twentieth century, the French scholar and judge Marc Ansel, developing the school of new social protection, wrote that it is not surprising that some people lose faith in criminal justice, which is unable to consider the conditions and requirements of the modern world. It is necessary to take a decisive step to modernise criminal law. This is the step I have tried to take in this book.

I would also like to emphasise one more aspect, which at the same time can be considered a spoiler for this publication, although I sincerely hope that the intrigue of such a spoiler will not disappear. This book is the result of my research and synthesis over a period of twenty years, influenced by the great Michel Foucault, whose seminal work "To Discipline and Punish", which I purchased in May 2000, shaped many of the thoughts I have expressed in this book.

I sincerely hope that this book will be of interest and use to political scientists and policymakers, managers of all criminal justice agencies and philosophers, legal theorists and practitioners, and most importantly, to prison officers who perform a crucial mission in society.