Prisons are places very far from public view. What happens in prisons is rarely directly experienced or seen by members of the public. Through inspection, monitoring and oversight of what happens in prison that we can get a glimpse into life in prison. Because of this distance...
Prisons are places very far from public view. What happens in prisons is rarely directly experienced or seen by members of the public. Through inspection, monitoring and oversight of what happens in prison that we can get a glimpse into life in prison. Because of this distance from the public gaze, but also because of the particular circumstances of prison life, including socio-economic and health inequalities, the protection of human rights and the rule of law in prison can be at risk. There is a need for robust oversight of what happens in prison, as well as opportunities to bring concerns to bodies which can do something about them.
Accountability is fundamental to the rule of law in prisons and a just and effective European prison system. International human rights law places a great deal of trust in and emphasis on inspection, monitoring and complaints procedures as ways to protect human rights and prevent ill-treatment in prisons. This project, Prisons: the rule of law, accountability and rights (PRILA) examines the legal framework and, through comparative legal analysis, questions whether there is a distinctively European approach to the regulation of prisons.
PRILA also seeks to understand how prison staff and people in prison feel about the inspection, monitoring and oversight of prisons. The project also explores how staff of bodies such as prison inspectorates, Ombudsmen, complaints bodies and prison monitors feel about and experience their work.
The project examines what kinds of accountability mechanisms for prisons exist, and what the effects of them are. PRILA will also examine how a visit from an international monitoring body to a prison is experienced.
It is important for us to understand more about how accountability, inspection and oversight works in the prison context. These systems are designed to protect the rights of everybody in the prison system, and to uphold the public interest in prisons being run in a just and safe manner. It is also important to make sure that our laws and regulations in Europe for these mechanisms are the best they can be. It is especially important to make sure that European standards are world-class.
PRILA helps us to understand:
1. How prisoners experience accountability structures, and rights;
2. How prison managers and prison officers/guards experience monitoring and external scrutiny;
3. How staff of bodies like Ombudsmen and inspectorates experience their work, and challenges in their work;
4. How a visit from an inspection and monitoring body is experienced;
5. What kinds of accountability structures exist in European prisons;
6. How types of accountability structures are related to other indicators of penal regimes, such as prison overcrowding; and
7. Whether there is a distinctive European way for accountability in prisons, by comparing European law with that of the United States and other jurisdictions.
PRILA has engaged in comparative legal analysis of the regulation of inspection, monitoring and complaints in the prison context. The project compares the situation in European law (under Council of Europe and European Union laws) to that of the United States of America and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights system. Comparisons between the Council of Europe and the United States resulted in a publication in the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice in 2018. This paper found that the concepts which the Supreme Court of the United States and the European Court of Human Rights uses in the area of punishment e.g. human dignity, are similar, but the way in which they are deployed can be quite different. The Supreme Court, for example, looks much more critically and searchingly at the concept of rehabilitation. The project has also examined the oversight requirements in the situation where a prisoner dies in custody. This publication was in Health and Human Rights. It found that robust and independent oversight of prison deaths is an essential requirement of human rights law.
The project has also found that European human rights law could be strengthened, particularly in the area of inspection and monitoring. The international human rights law framework, particularly the United Nations’ Optional Protocol to the Prevention of Torture and the United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules), has advanced since the conclusion of the European Prison Rules in 2006. PRILA has made submissions to Council of Europe and domestic bodies on how to improve these standards, arguing that there needs to be a statement of the precise powers of inspection and monitoring bodies. The commentary to the European Prison Rules, which expands on the content of those rules and guides their interpretation, has been revised. PRILA was pleased to see changes in the sections on inspection and monitoring.
PRILA wants to understand how these legal concepts operate in practice. In particular, it wants to know what prison staff and prisoners think about, and how they experience, the oversight of prisons. The PRILA research team has started to conduct interviews and surveys with prisoners in Ireland, finding out about their experiences of inspection, complaints and access to the courts. It has also started to speak to prison staff, asking them about their experiences of the complaints procedures, visits from inspection and monitoring bodies, and the role of the courts. Now, PRILA is beginning its comparative work on these subjects with Germany.
PRIILA has also started its work examining how inspection and oversight of prisons operates across the European Union. It will shortly circulate a survey of all EU28 countries to find out what oversight bodies exist for prisons in Europe, with a view to examining whether there are relationships between those types of structures and other characteristics of prison regimes in Europe. This survey will provide an up-to-date and detailed understanding of the nature of oversight bodies in the European Union.
PRILA will also examine the lived experience of a visit from an international prison monitoring body.
As well as publishing articles in the Howard Journal for Crime and Justice and Health and Human Rights, the PRILA team is particularly proud that it was invited to make a submission to the Council of Europe’s Committee for Penological Cooperation (PCCP). The Council fo Europe has revised the commentary to the European Prison Rules at present. The PRILA team made a submission on how that commentary could be improved in the area of inspection and monitoring which was incorporated into the revisions of that commentary. The European Prison Rules are now currently under revision and PRILA has made a submission on the rules relating to inspection, complaints and monitoring.
It is expected that PRILA will create a new kind of scholarship which explores the work of accountability bodies and how they are experienced in the prison environment. PRILA will provide the first account of how external mechanisms of achieving accountability in prisons, such as Ombudsmen, inspectors, and judicial review, operate, and whether there is a distinctive European approach to the rule of law in prisons. PRILA has already found gaps in the European protections for human rights in prisons when it comes to oversight, and suggested that they need to be strengthened.
Key outcomes:
1. PRILA will create a new kind of scholarship: accountability work in prisons and its effects.
2. PRILA will create the first comprehensive account of how external mechanisms of oversight affect penal power and penal legitimacy.
3. PRILA seeks to improve how the rule of law applies in prisons, help to improve policy, and create more just and effective prison systems.
4. Dissemination through academic channels and to policymakers, prison staff and prisoners through briefing papers, workshops, and final conference.
It is very important to the research team that the findings are made accessible to prison staff, people in prison, staff of oversight bodies, policymakers and the public. This is critical as prisons play a crucial role in fulfilling and advancing the public interest in protecting rights, promoting the rule of law and ensuring our prisons are run as well as they can be. PRILA looks forward to publishing briefing papers on its work, and to hosting workshops and a conference to bring its findings to a variety of audiences.
More info: http://www.tcd.ie/law/research/prila.