Overseeing Rights in Prison: The Irish Experience of Human Rights Protection in Prisons

Drawing on Ireland as its primary case study, this book is an in- depth critical examination of how rights protection bodies and mechanisms are experienced by those in prison in Ireland.

Through its analysis of the Irish experience, the book considers the implementation of, and challenges faced by, human rights protection within the prison context, and explores some of the reforms that Ireland has undertaken in this area over the past 15 years, including the introduction of a new complaint system and establishment of an Office of the Inspector of Prisons. Using a wealth of information gathered through interviews and surveys of participants in three male prisons, the book sets out personal experiences of such mechanisms and identifies the key barriers to effective rights protection.

Offering a detailed presentation of the international framework for the protection of prisoners’ rights through oversight mechanisms, and proposing methods for overcoming common barriers, Overseeing Rights in Prison: The Irish Experience of Human Rights Protection in Prisons will be of interest to students and scholars of criminology, particularly in relation to prisons and human rights.

Sophie van der Valk is a postdoctoral researcher with the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice on the project Transforming Justice: An All-Island Examination of Justice Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse. She is a socio-legal researcher who received her PhD from Trinity College Dublin as part of the ERC funded Prisons: the Rule of Law, Accountability and Rights (PRILA) project. Her PhD examined the experiences of those in prison of human rights protecting mechanisms, specifically complaint procedures, inspection and monitoring and the courts. Her findings have been used to inform the new framework of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons in Ireland and been disseminated through workshops, training days, conference presentations, reports, blogs and academic publications. Her research has been published both internationally and domestically in journals such as the European Journal of Criminology and the Law and Society Review. She has previously conducted research in the field of counter terrorism, specifically examining issues concerning the prosecution and other measures used against foreign fighters.