I just read "The File" by Timothy Ash (I highly recommend it) and while he gives good descriptions of how the system worked and even motivations for why people were working as Stasi agents and informers, he really didn't talk about what happened to people once they were arrested and convicted. Were there special prisons for those arrested by the Stasi, and if so what were conditions like? How long could someone be expected to be in prison? I know this question isn't that specific since I'm almost certain that people would be arrested for different crime sand as a result punishments would be different. I'm just looking for a general descriptions.
Thanks!
After arrest, they were usually incarcerated in one of the fiften Untersuchungshaftanstalten (remand centres) of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (as the Stasi was officially called). Fourteen of them were local remand centres, completed by the Zentrales Untersuchungsgefängnis der Staatssicherheit (central remand centre) in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.
Five of those remand centres were turned into memorials after the German reunification:
All of those memorials / museums are today open for the public and for scientific research, to show and research incarceration in Stasi prisons.
There are several publications detailing Stasi prisons, but I am only aware of one brochure in English: Peter Erler, Hubertus Knabe: The Prohibited District : The Stasi Restricted Area Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, Jaron Verlag, 2005.
The treatments within the prisons as well as the length of your incarceration depended on the reasons why the Stasi kept you there. Some prisoners were only kept to be ransomed to the FRG (and, in that case, stayed there till the FRG paid the ransom). Others were simply taken as a warning and thus already released after a short while. You may be lucky and released after a couple hours, or stay there for years.
Prisoners report constant isolation and deprivation techniques as form of psychological torture.