Sowing the Seeds for Change: Prison Abolition in Overcrowded Times (original) (raw)
Related papers
Classism and other failures of the Irish Prison System: An Abolitionist Perspective.docx
The Social and Political Review, 2015
The Irish prison system is in a state of crisis as evidenced by chronic overcrowding, budgetary cuts, high recidivism rates, endemic fear of crime, poor prisoner conditions, and in particular accusations of discrimination as elements of the crisis; yet the existence of prison remains largely unquestioned. This article, while relying on an interdisciplinary approach of critical perspectives on law, sociology, penology and criminology uses an abolitionist perspective to determine whether prison is a viable solution in dealing with offenders of the criminal law in the context of these failures, especially in terms of its arguable classist nature. More particularly, relative abolitionism seeks the abolition of prison for the majority of prisoners that pose no known physical danger to the public, while acknowledging the need to physically confine a minority of dangerous offenders but not in a prison-like system. The need to abolish prisons resides not only in its clear failure to reduce offending but also in the proposed classist nature of the Irish prison system which means the majority of prisoners are likely to come from poor socio-economic backgrounds. The article asks; what purpose does prison supposedly serve, whether this is a valid purpose, what its impacts are, and whether it actually achieves that goal, and how prison persists if it does not achieve its aims. Finally, the article considers whether partial abolitionism is a laudable and practical solution.
The aim of this article is to highlight and discuss the gradual emergence of a culture of social re-integration in Irish penal policy. The first section of this article seeks to provide a descriptive analysis of the multi-faceted approach to prisoner re-integration as it appears in a contemporary Irish context. It is suggested here that in order to fully understand the ideal of re-integration in a contemporary context it must be presented as an amorphous ideal which is pursued by the key stakeholders of penal policy in an incomplete and often contradictory fashion. This article will attempt to outline the three specific approaches to re-integration which can be seen to exist in a contemporary Irish context, while briefly attempting to outline the contemporary acceptance of a limited fourth approach, namely that of social re-integration, by legislators and community organisations.