Description

LAW, JUSTICE & PRISONS
MODERN INFOGRAPHICS
TÜRKIYE

عدلیه وکالتی احصائیات مدیریتی [Adliye Vekâleti İhsaiyat Müdiriyeti / Directorate of Statistics of the Ministry of Justice].

تموز ١٩٢٦ ده عموم مَحبوسخا‌نه‌لرده مَوجود ومَحكوم اَشخاص
Convicted individuals present in general prisons in July 1926

[Istanbul:] جمهوريت مطبعه‌سی [Cumhuriyet Matbaası / The Republic Press] 1926.

Colour lithography, 41 x 57 cm (16.3 x 22.6 inches), (soft folds, overall good).

The radical transformation of the Turkish legal landscape began in earnest with the adoption of the 1924 Constitution, which systematically dismantled centuries of Ottoman legal tradition. By assigning all judicial authority strictly to independent secular courts and completely abolishing the long-standing religious sharia courts, the young Republic of Turkey laid the institutional bedrock for a thoroughly modernized, westernized state.

This dramatic shift from religious jurisprudence to a unified, secular civil code demanded a powerful public demonstration of institutional efficiency and state authority. The newly reorganized Ministry of Justice proudly turned to advanced data visualization as a tool of bureaucratic triumph. Large-format, polychrome statistical broadsides, such as this July 1926 poster, served as a highly visible testament to the success of the new judicial system. By organizing complex penal data, sentencing metrics, and nationwide prison populations into beautifully structured, geometric infographics, the state was not merely cataloguing statistics—it was visually broadcasting its newfound capacity for objective surveillance, legal uniformity, and modern administrative control to a nation in transition.

Printed in July 1926—just two years prior to Turkey’s historic 1928 adoption of the modern Latin alphabet—this impressive document represents a pinnacle of early Republican administrative modernization and statecraft, heavily inspired by classical European graphical statistics.

The broadside is structured into an interconnected layout designed to present complex legal data at a single glance:

The Central Diagram (Volume Density Diagram): Reflects the absolute mathematical precision of the newly secularized Ministry. At its center, a nested series of concentric circles maps a national total of 9,857 convicts, neatly sub-divided into 6,938 standard imprisonments, 2,322 hard labor sentences (kürek), and 597 fortress detentions (kal’abend).

The Color-Coded Nodes: Branching outward from the core are vibrant, lithographed peripheral circles representing sentence weights. Large red nodes track high-severity sentences (such as capital punishment / idam and life imprisonment), dark blue nodes trace intermediate correctional sentences, and small yellow nodes break down short-term detentions measured in months, weeks, or hours (down to 24-hour holds).

The Textual Legends (İzahât): Flanking the central diagram on the left and right are two circular inset text blocks. Signed in print by official A. Hikmet, these passages act as the user key, instructing viewers on how to read the geometric scales, mathematical classes, and specific color-coded demographics.

The Matrix Grid: The entire lower half of the poster consists of a highly sophisticated, multi-tiered bar graph grid. The vertical axis is divided into mathematical groups of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, while a delicate, zig-zag trendline (hatt-ı münkesir) links the data columns across the horizontal categories to chart macro-fluctuations in crime and punishment.

The footer bears the printing and publishing imprint of the Ministry of Justice (Adliye Vekâleti), cementing its status as an official state publication. Produced just two years prior to Turkey’s historic 1928 transition to the modern Latin alphabet, this chart is an exceptional and beautifully preserved artifact illustrating the intersection of Middle Eastern legal history, early 20th-century state administration, and the evolution of modern infographics.