Putting Penal Reform on the Map: Prisoners’ Rights Movements and Penal History

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of organisations representing “ordinary” prisoners in the Republic of Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s. Although these organisations have been eclipsed in popular and academic studies by protest movements among politically aligned prisoners, they deserve more attention because of their demand for penal reform for all prisoners. While there was a proliferation of prisoners’ rights movements internationally at this time, the momentum for reform in the Republic of Ireland was primarily local, focussing on shortcomings in the prison system. Despite penal reform being a protracted and contested process, the campaigns by prisoners’ rights movements made a significant contribution to the debates around the conditions of confinement and prisoners’ rights in the 1970s and 1980s.