Prisons inspection and the protection of human rights

‘One always looks for a compromise…’: Senior prison managers’ views of law, human rights and prisoner complaints in Germany

“…While accountability demands, and, with them, oversight, judicial control and individual prisoner's complaints can be seen as useful monitoring against the benchmark of human rights standards (Cheliotis, 2006, Crewe and Liebling, 2015, Coyle and Fair, 2018), in a performance culture these demands may rather be perceived as adding up to never-ending reporting duties, with a multiplicity of sources seeking to hold prison staff to account, usually through the means of paperwork (Curristan and Rogan, 2022). Owers (2007) has cautioned that because of this, managers could focus on the ‘virtual prison’, and not how imprisonment is experienced in daily life and Murphy and Whitty (2007) show that, in such a context, human rights compliance can become formalised and divorced from the purpose and spirit of such norms. Hardwick has echoed this and concedes that prison inspection in England and Wales using inspection scores ‘might feel like a tick-box exercise’ (2016: 650) although the inspector's aim remains to see the concern resolved, not to control if a recommendation has been followed formally.…”

The Australian Prison Population and Daily Life in Australian Prisons

“…As Owers warns, 'security can come to have the quality of the parental "because I say so"; the trump card, the excuse rather than the reason'. 126 While ever security remains the 'trump card' in Australian prisons, it will not be possible to achieve human rights compliance. 127…”

Criminal Liability for Deaths in Prison Custody: The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007

“…The fact that the application of the 2007 Act to the ‘ugly side of public service activity’ has not been subject to much academic scrutiny (Horder , p.115) is particularly evident in the prison context, where there has been a considerable number of reports over the last decade that have repeatedly offered evidence of inadequate screening and formal risk assessment, not to mention insufficient and inexperienced staffing, overcrowded conditions, and recurrent weaknesses in the implementation of the prison service suicide and self‐harm prevention procedures (as set out in Safer Custody , Prison Service Instruction (PSI) 64/2011 (Ministry of Justice ) and in the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) Plan , version 5) (Prisons and Probation Ombudsman , p.5; HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales , p.29). Furthermore, there is evidence − despite the effect of deaths in custody on both the individuals and establishments involved (Liebling , pp.201–2) − that certain prisons still fail to give sufficient attention to implementing and reinforcing the recommendations of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), who investigates all deaths in prison custody, in fulfilment of the procedural duty under Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (Owers , p.1537).…”