Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
Human Rights and Prisons - Rethinking Crime and Punishment
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Staff-prisoner ratios require improvement;<br />
There is a need to build staff training in terms of enhancing skill-sets<br />
with regards to particular groups (eg working with female prisoners)<br />
<strong>and</strong> issues (such as human rights training or specific mental health<br />
training);<br />
Further primary research on rights st<strong>and</strong>ard practices within New<br />
Zeal<strong>and</strong> prisons is required. This research should highlight good<br />
practice as well as areas that necessitate improvement.<br />
However, taking a human rights approach to the issue of detention is not just<br />
about exposing particular physical conditions <strong>and</strong> practices. It is important<br />
that human rights thinking does not just become a case of ticking boxes<br />
against a checklist of targets or processes or minimum st<strong>and</strong>ards. Following<br />
the latter route, while useful in terms of managerialist practices, will not result<br />
in a human rights ethos or culture.<br />
<strong>Rethinking</strong> Imprisonment Practices<br />
Beyond these concerns, building a rights-based culture also requires an<br />
examination of what prisons should be about, it requires questions about the<br />
criminal justice system as a whole (Livingstone, 2008). That is, taking a<br />
rights-based approach should also include thinking about „overall patterns of<br />
imprisonment, their institutional context, cultural attachment to penal<br />
sensibilities <strong>and</strong> the general…consequences of imprisonment‟ (Piacentini,<br />
2004:186). This may include thinking about whether certain groups of people<br />
– such as asylum seekers or those with serious mental health problems or<br />
women or others – should be imprisoned at all. Our current reliance on, <strong>and</strong><br />
expansion of, the penal system has indicated a mentality in which „the prison<br />
has become both the starting point <strong>and</strong> the finishing point for the debate<br />
around crime control‟ (Sim, 2008:141). In response, we need to pay much<br />
more attention to how we underst<strong>and</strong>, justify <strong>and</strong> administer imprisonment <strong>and</strong><br />
punishments generally.<br />
Building a human rights culture also entails discussion on how human rights<br />
within prison environments are interlinked to rights within wider societies. It is<br />
evident, for instance, that many of those who are sent to prison are those who<br />
have not enjoyed secure access to human rights st<strong>and</strong>ards within wider<br />
communities. In addition, imprisonment aggravates this situation – as, on<br />
release, prisoners are likely to find that attaining rights (such as gaining<br />
employment, finding secure housing, <strong>and</strong> so on) becomes even more difficult.<br />
Thus, human rights st<strong>and</strong>ards are currently being damaged or at least<br />
endangered before, during <strong>and</strong> after imprisonment. Of course, it is not<br />
possible for prisons to be able to prevent or resolve all these violations.<br />
However, the attainment of these rights – inside <strong>and</strong> outside the prison walls –<br />
is fundamental to the rehabilitation <strong>and</strong> successful reintegration of those we<br />
choose to incarcerate, as well as to the wellbeing of families <strong>and</strong> communities.<br />
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