Prisoners In Northern Ireland Research Articles

Wastewater analysis for new psychoactive substances and cocaine and cannabis in a Northern Ireland Prison

The global drug market has been significantly impacted by the emergence of new psychoactive substances, leading to challenges in creating effective legislative controls and their use within recreational drug consumption. This research explores the prevalence of new psychoactive substances and non-medicinal and medicinal compounds within a prison facility in Northern Ireland. Wastewater samples collected from seven different manholes within the prison were analysed for 37 target compounds including the two most found illicit substances: benzoylecgonine (primary metabolite of cocaine) and cannabis. Using solid phase extraction with Oasis HLB and liquid-chromatography-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry across a gradient of 9 min, our analysis revealed that benzoylecgonine was the sole compound consistently present in all collected samples. Following this finding, our target compound selection was broadened to encompass medicinal compounds and employing qualitative analysis we re-evaluated the samples and discovered the presence of buprenorphine, benzodiazepines, methadone, morphine, and codeine. Finally, the study explored the application of enzymatic beta-glucuronidase hydrolysis to the samples. This final phase yielded significant findings, indicating the presence of codeine and nordiazepam at higher peak intensities, thereby shedding light on the potential implications of this enzymatic process.

A project designed to examine, for the first time, the health records of adult prisoners in Northern Ireland and their linkage to other available health data: the test case of prisoner post-release mortality risk.

A project designed to examine, for the first time, the health records of adult prisoners in Northern Ireland and their linkage to other available health data: the test case of prisoner post-release mortality risk
 ObjectivesThe linkage of routinely collected administrative data for research purposes has the potential to improve knowledge and public benefit. We describe a novel data linkage study between the Northern Ireland (NI) Healthcare in Prisons and Business Services Organisation (BSO). This work is undertaken within the Administrative Data Research Centre-NI (ADRC-NI).
 ApproachThis joint project between ADRC-NI Queen’s University Belfast and NI Healthcare in Prisons (South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust) will test linkage of prisoner health records to health data held in the BSO and the potential to generate a population-based cohort for a retrospective analysis of prisoner health (2012-2021) that will attempt to characterise prisoners according to socio-demographic, health and committal factors, compare post-release mortality rates with a reference group from the NI population using indirect standardisation and estimate post-release mortality risk using Cox proportional hazards models.
 ResultsUsing novel data-linkages, a dataset will be created to examine the health of prisoners (and former prisoners) in NI. Ethics and governance approvals are in place for this data-linkage. The linkage will be undertaken via the Honest Broker Service (HBS) in NI and the dataset will be accessed in the safe setting at the BSO. The processes involved, experiences including significant delays or difficulties, and recommendations for future data-linkage studies will be discussed. In addition, a key deliverable of this project will be an assessment of access and linkage capabilities of the prisoner health data, with metadata created and made available to future researchers. In addition, we plan to present preliminary results relating to the test research question.
 ConclusionWe will describe the processes involved and first-hand research experience in the development of a novel data-linkage project, in addition we will detail access and linkage capabilities in relation to this new dataset to examine health in prisoners (and former prisoners) in NI.

Narratives of life after political imprisonment: Republican and Loyalist ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of prison experience in ex-political prisoners in Northern Ireland in the context of changing and conflicting master narratives.Design/methodology/approachA series of nine interviews were conducted with Loyalist and Republican political ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland. Eight were male and one was female. All had been in prison for substantial sentences relating to the Troubles.FindingsThis study highlighted the challenges faced by political ex-prisoners regarding the changing conflicting master narratives in Northern Ireland and identified how they deal with these challenges. The participants adapted to post-conflict society by attempting to understand and make sense of their experiences, including justifying their actions as appropriate for the era and identifying positive changes in society resulting from the conflict.Research limitations/implicationsA narrative approach can be beneficial for understanding the experiences of political ex-prisoners. It enables a theoretical perspective to look not only at the personal but also at social elements of why people behave as they do. The findings demonstrate that political ex-prisoners do have different experiences to non-political ex-prisoners. The sample size was small and was drawn from a specific group of political ex-prisoners who were actively seeking reconciliation. The findings may be different for other groups.Practical implicationsA narrative approach can help the practitioner understand the context in which a person lives; ex-political prisoners may be very different from ordinary ex-prisoners because of the context in which they were imprisoned and the reasons for which they were imprisoned. They are likely to continue with the narrative of the conflict they fought in and may still have the same aims (e.g. Northern Ireland to become part of Ireland), though they may or may not believe in the same means. These are issues that should be discussed and elaborated when working with ex-political prisoners.Social implicationsThe master narratives active in the society into which the political ex-prisoner is released may impact the success or otherwise of their re-integration into society.Originality/valueUnderstanding the role of conflicting master narratives in dealing with the implications of being an ex-political prisoner.

Republican women and Catholic Church responses to the strip searching of female prisoners in Northern Ireland, 1982–92

ABSTRACT Although the practice of strip searching of female prisoners in Northern Ireland was used in the1970s, it reached its height in Armagh Jail between 1980 and 1986. Based on in-depth interviews and extensive archival research, the article brings together two different perspectives on strip-searching. It first examines the personal narratives of strip searching by republican women, who interpreted the practice as a violation of the female body, a form of systematic oppression, and a ‘gendered weapon’ deliberately used to demoralise and humiliate republican women, and by extension, the wider republican and nationalist community. The article explores how republican women gained an unlikely advocate in denouncing strip searching and the State in the form of some members of the Irish Catholic Church. While the Irish Catholic Church had regularly condemned republican violence, some within the Church viewed strip searching as a moral issue and a clear violation of basic human rights. The article demonstrates how more radical, nationalist members of the Catholic clergy and hierarchy walked a fine line between taking a pastoral concern for their parishioners and making political statements against the British government, leading to questions about the Catholic Church and its role in the Northern Irish conflict.

Inter- and intra-agency intelligence liaison during ‘the troubles’

ABSTRACT Intelligence is crucial to success in counter-terrorism, and successful intelligence work involves effective liaison between and within all the organisations involved. Scholars rarely address intelligence in counter-terrorism other than through case studies, while studies of intelligence in counter-insurgency and studies of international intelligence liaison emphasise the value of intelligence liaison with little attention to how it works in practice. This article substantially expands existing knowledge and understanding by focusing on intelligence coordination within Northern Ireland in the 1990s. It draws on heretofore unexploited, yet voluminous, original material. It analyses the contribution that computerisation made to inter-agency liaison, the contribution the Northern Ireland Prison Service made to intelligence work, the role played by intra- and inter-agency structures and the valuable work that the right individuals in the right posts can do. This article thereby provides a broader and deeper understanding of the challenges faced by state agencies and how some of these were overcome to facilitate inter- and intra-agency intelligence liaison in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. It therefore contributes to emerging theory that seeks to explain intelligence.

Male Republican Prisoners in Northern Ireland: Resistance, Emotions and Homosociality

The literature on male imprisonment consistently reveals a particular form of hegemonic masculinity based on competition, dominance and violence, actual or threatened. This article seeks to examine this standard view via the experience of republican politically motivated prisoners in Northern Ireland. It finds evidence of elements of hegemonic masculinity as in other prisons, but alongside this there was an alternative form of hegemonic masculinity, one based on the ability to endure rather than inflict violence. The article also examines the way in which homosociality – male fraternity without homosexual desire – was an integral part of the prison experience and was enhanced by the solidarity among the prisoners; this solidarity was based on both initial political ideology and the collective resistance against the prison system's attempts to break their solidarity. Finally, it also examines the space for emotions and emotional support in the difficult circumstances of violence inflicted by prison officers, an extended “blanket protest” and a harrowing hunger strike.

Not so multicultural prison: Polish prisoners in a transitional prison system

The aim of this article is to examine how a group of Polish male prisoners negotiate daily life in prison custody in Northern Ireland. In a jurisdiction emerging from years of armed conflict, the prison system is currently undergoing structural changes to bring it in line with other systems providing peacetime custody. Alongside that reform, another transition is evident, that of a rapidly increasing diversity of the prison population. Unlike elsewhere in the UK, the number of foreign national prisoners in Northern Ireland began increasing only in the last decade. Analysing the ways in which Polish prisoners negotiate relationships with other prisoners and staff, the article concludes that many live in a prison within prison, with a high wall of communication barriers around them, suspended before their entry into custody and the ever-looming moment of deportation. The prison system, largely unprepared to deal with more diverse populations, facilitates their existence in ‘mono-cultural boxes’ in the meantime.

Entering the Maze: Space, time and exclusion in an abandoned Northern Ireland prison

This article is an autoethnographic account of the authors’ trespassing in the abandoned Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. For three decades before its closure in 2000, the Maze was the site of intense political struggle. The ruins of the Maze – a space once built to let no one out that now allows no one in – exist now in a state of limbo, between the conflicting narratives of the prison’s troubled past, and an uncertain future. We present a brief historical account of the Maze, and explain our unconventional choice of ‘research method’, before introducing Foucault’s notion of the heterotopia. We suggest that the Maze is an archetypally heterotopic space and our experience of exploring the prison can equally be described as such.

Victimisation and Attitudes Towards Former Political Prisoners in Northern Ireland

The release of ex-combatants and the mechanisms for their re-integration within society has become an increasingly controversial issue in peace settlements. Yet to date, the view of victims concerning such arrangements in post-conflict societies remains unexplored. Mindful of this omission and using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article investigates the relationship between victimisation and attitudes towards the treatment of former political prisoners. Based on the 2011 Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, the results suggest that individual victims—those who directly and/or indirectly experienced violent incidents—are notably less supportive of a punitive approach towards the treatment of former political prisoners than non-victims. Moreover, this is particularly the case when victims from within the Catholic community are considered. The Northern Ireland evidence suggests that victims can act as a positive and inclusive force in terms of the rehabilitation and re-integration of former combatants in societies emerging from conflict.

Stealing the Smile from My Child's Face: A Preliminary Evaluation of the “Being a Dad” Programme in a Northern Ireland Prison

Children who have a parent in prison are a vulnerable group. Research suggests that such children experience a range of poor outcomes in relation to well-being, education and relationships. These outcomes are mediated by a range of factors including contact with the incarcerated parent. Similarly, prisoners who maintain contact with their families are less likely to reoffend. Evidence to support the importance of the prison system recognising and helping to maintain parenting roles for parents in prison is beginning to emerge, and this investigation sought to investigate fathers' views of an innovative parenting intervention implemented in Her Majesty's Prison Maghaberry centred around the Being a Dad programme. Eighteen fathers completed the programme. Data collected after participation indicated that fathers reported a range of positive outcomes including improved understanding of child behaviour and development and improved communication quality. Implications for further parenting support within the prison population are discussed.

‘Sometimes I wish I was an “ex” ex-prisoner’: identity processes in the collective action participation of former prisoners in Northern Ireland

Since the signing of the Northern Ireland peace agreement, a plethora of community-based prisoner self-help organizations has been established wherein former prisoners and staff, manage and deliver services to colleagues. By forging and maintaining their collective identities through community-based mutual aid, members of these self-help organizations not only have progressed to create individual change/assistance but have also developed and evolved to tackle serious wider social issues which impact the members of their organizations. This is a critical analysis of how the conditions of a post-conflict society can influence both the development and evolution of these organizations and also how members situate their claims about the self in the organization and beyond. Using the social movement framework, it is argued that the work of these self-help organizations have given rise to a new politics of identity – the ‘politically motivated’ ex-prisoner.

“They Might as Well Be Walking around the inside of a Biscuit Tin”: Barriers to Employment and Reintegration for ‘Politically Motivated’ Former Prisoners in Northern Ireland

The prisoner provisions under the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement emphasised the importance of the reintegration and civic inclusion of ‘politically motivated’ former prisoners; however, numerous barriers to full reintegration remain. Notwithstanding the fact that these prisoners were released as part of a peace process, based on principles of conflict transformation and reconciliation, there were still numerous conditions placed upon them as part of their release process and they continued to hold a ‘criminal’ record upon release. As with ‘ordinary’ ex-prisoners, these ‘politically motivated’ former prisoners have subsequently faced numerous obstacles in their attempts to reintegrate back into society, particularly in the area of employment. Recognising that they needed to deal with the consequences of imprisonment, ‘politically motivated’ former prisoners formed numerous self-help organizations to assist in the reintegration process and have mobilised to lobby for protection against the discrimination and unequal treatment experienced by ex-prisoners seeking employment. This article explores the remaining barriers to employment for ‘politically motivated’ former prisoners and the consequences of these barriers. The article moves to assess how prisoner groups have subsequently used a ‘rights based’ discourse to engage local government in their struggle to overcome existing obstacles before finally concluding that any piecemeal attempt to remove barriers to full reintegration will only impede the longer term conflict transformation process in Northern Ireland.

Framing blame and punishment: former politically motivated prisoners in post-conflict Northern Ireland

Trying to account for the discrepancy between public policy promoting the reintegration of politically motivated former prisoners in Northern Ireland and their exclusion in practice prompted me to ...

Life after prison: the experiences of prison officers serving during the Troubles in Northern Ireland

The men and women employed by the Northern Ireland prison service served through some of the most infamous events in the course of the ‘Troubles’. In 1998 a downsizing initiative was launched which resulted in over 1000 prison personnel accepting early retirement packages. This study aimed to explore the experience of service life in Northern Ireland and investigate how the circumstances of retirement impact upon well‐being. Ninty‐nine retired prison officers participated in the study, 80% of whom were early retirees. Each participant completed several measures of well‐being and a series of open‐ended questions regarding their experiences of service life. Both early retirement from the prison service and the perception of being forced to retire were associated with greater psychological distress and lower self‐esteem. Qualitative analysis revealed a high level of loyalty to the prison service and pride in the role of prison officer. However, participants also expressed feeling of rejection and disappointment in their subsequent treatment by the prison service and the government.

“Nobody’s Pretending That It’s Ideal”: Conflict, Women, and Imprisonment in Northern Ireland

Based on primary qualitative research with women prisoners in Northern Ireland (conducted for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission by the author with Professor Phil Scraton 1, Professor of Criminology, School of Law, Queens University Belfast), this article documents the serious and persistent breaches of international rights standards experienced by incarcerated women and the continued impact of the violent political conflict in the North on women’s penal regimes. Feminist authors have commented on the gendered nature of the state’s punishment of politically motivated women in Armagh prison during the years of conflict and have also discussed the ways in which women prisoners used their bodies as weapons of resistance. It is argued here that the failure of the authorities to effectively tackle the historical and current breaches of women prisoners’ rights as part of the process of transition to a more peaceful society has allowed the continuation of control and punishment-oriented regimes for “ordinary” women prisoners. The article explores the state’s failure to reform the women’s prison system in Northern Ireland in the face of successive critical reports from regional, national, and international inspection and “watchdog” bodies that have recommended the establishment of a new “rights-based” women’s prison unit alongside the development of a gender-specific strategy and policies. The article concludes by assessing the current opportunities for change.

The Benefit of Personal Experience and Personal Study: Prisoners and the Politics of Enfranchisement

Prisoners and ex-prisoners have played a prominent role in modern Irish history. Yet despite using their prison experience for political advancement, on release, few political leaders became vocal advocates of penal reform in general or prisoner enfranchisement in particular. Prior to the passing of the Electoral (Amendment) Act in 2006, Irish prisoners were in an anomalous position: they were allowed to register, but no facility existed, for them to vote. However, this did not prevent prisoners from engaging with, and at times, challenging the political system, both north and south throughout the 20th century. Much has been written about political activity among prisoners in Northern Ireland but relatively little about their endeavors in the Irish Republic. This article begins with an examination of political participation among prisoners in the early decades of the Irish State. Despite the legal and political struggle by prisoners and penal reformers to achieve enfranchisement, when it was granted, it was in the context of electoral, rather than penal reform. Prisoner enfranchisement did not become a major issue in Ireland in contrast to other countries and reasons are examined from a historical and political perspective.

"At a Loss for Words": Theatre, Performance and the Northern Ireland Prison Protests

In plays as diverse as Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City, Frank McGuinness’s Carthaginians and Vincent Woods’s At the Black Pig’s Dyke, there is evidence of an intemperate opposition to the idea of republicans performing protest against the state in Northern Ireland. Using Augusto Boal’s conception of theatre as a cultural weapon with a powerful emancipatory and utopian potential (“theatre as a rehearsal for revolution”) and drawing on Joseph Roach and Nicholas Argenti’s ideas of the kinesthetic imagination, this essay considers the republican prison protests that took place Ireland in the period 1978-81. “At a Loss for Words” argues that the cultural logic, not to mention the disconcerting effectiveness of these protests in mobilizing mass opposition to the state, is best understood in terms of theatrical performance.

Conflict, Transformation, and Former Loyalist Paramilitary Prisoners in Northern Ireland

Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, levels of paramilitary violence have declined substantially. Among loyalists, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and associated Red Hand Commando (RHC) have formally renounced violence, and dissolved their ‘military structures’, and perhaps the most reticent of all of the major paramilitary groupings, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), has taken on board the central tenets of conflict transformation, and ‘stood down’ all of its ‘active service units’ in the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). Thus, paramilitary violence now is mainly confined to the activities of ‘dissident’ republican groups, notably the Real and Continuity IRAs, although low-level sectarian violence remains a problem. Such dramatic societal and political change has resulted in a focus on the roles of formal party political leadership as agents of social change. This gaze, however, tends to obscure other important events such as the efforts, structures and approaches taken at the grassroots level to uphold and sustain conflict transformation and to maintain a reduction in violence. This article provides analysis of the role played by former loyalist paramilitary combatants in conflict transformation, and draws on material obtained through significant access to those former paramilitaries engaged in processes of societal shifts. In both personal and structural terms there is evidence of former combatants working to diminish the political tensions that remain as a result of the long-term inter-communal hostility developed across decades of violence and conflict.

James Joyce and the Politics of Food

In Stephen and Bloom at Life's Feast (1984), Lyndsey Tucker notes that Joyce pays close attention to food and digestion, especially in Bloom's gustatory progress through Ulysses.1 A close reading of Joyce's work also reveals characters who restrict their food intake in particular social and political situations, and in doing so, draw complicated connections between food, politics, and gender in Ireland. For instance, within both Dead and A Portrait ofthe Artist as a Young Man, women refuse food during important holiday dinner scenes; addi tionally, Stephen Dedalus displays his complex relationship with eating throughout the day in Ulysses, eventually refusing solid food completely. For Dedalus, uncertainties about identity?not just gender, but also Irishness and wholeness?become triggers to his food behaviors. Food refusal in Joyces work, which culminate in Stephen Dedalus's eventual rejection of solid food in Ulysses, builds upon an Irish historical and cultural tradition of food refusal as a form of political speech and suggests a way to rebuild fractured identity. The political implications of food in Ireland intensify because starvation, both willing and unwilling, is a recurring theme in Irish history. The long standing tactic of denial and self-starvation to protest mistreatment or impris onment adds a local significance to any analysis of ingestion in Irish literature. In The Hunger Artists, Maud Ellmann describes how Medieval Ireland, like medieval India, had a legal procedure of Tasting to distrain,' known as troscud, whereby a creditor could fast against a debtor, or a victim of injustice could fast against the person who had injured him.2 Such self-imposed starvation emerged famously in the 1920 death of Terrence McSwiney. In the 1980s, hunger strikes were used again by prisoners in Northern Ireland.

'Hearing Voices': Punishing women's mental ill-health in Northern Ireland's jails.

Informed by primary interviews and observational research conducted by the authors with women prisoners in Northern Ireland, this article focuses on prison as an institutional manifestation of women's powerlessness and vulnerability, particularly those enduring mental ill-health. It contextualises their experiences within continua of violence and 'unsafety'. It also considers official responses to critical inspection reports and those of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission based on the authors' research findings. Finally, the primary research demonstrates that three decades on from publication the first critical analyses of women's imprisonment, the conditions of gendered marginalisation, medicalisation and punishment remain. This is brought into stark relief in the punitive regimes imposed on those most vulnerable through mental ill-health.