Prison Policy in Ireland: Politics, Penal-Welfarism and Political Imprisonment

265 Pages·2011·1.587 MB·English

by  Mary Rogan

PRISON POLICY IN IRELAND
This book is the first examination of the history of prison policy in Ireland.
Despite sharing a legal and penal heritage with the United Kingdom, Ireland’s
prison policy has taken a different path. This book examines how penal-welfarism
was experienced in Ireland, shedding further light on the nature of this concept as
developed by David Garland. While the book has an Irish focus, it has a theoretical
resonance far beyond Ireland.
This book investigates and describes prison policy in Ireland since the
foundation of the state in 1922, analyses and assesses the factors influencing policy
during this period and explores and examines the links between prison policy and
the wider social, economic, political and cultural development of the Irish state.
It also explores how Irish prison policy has come to take on its particular
character, with comparatively low prison numbers, significant reliance on short
sentences and a policy-making climate in which long periods of neglect are
interspersed with bursts of political activity all prominent features.
Drawing on the emerging scholarship of policy analysis, the book argues that
it is only through close attention to the way in which policy is formed that we
will fully understand the nature of prison policy. In addition, the book examines
the effect of political imprisonment in the Republic of Ireland, which, until now,
has remained relatively unexplored.
This book will be of special interest to students of criminology within Ireland,
but also of relevance to students of comparative criminal justice, criminology and
criminal justice policy making in the UK and beyond.
Mary Rogan is Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies at Dublin Institute of Technology.
Her research interests include prison policy, criminal justice policy-making, penal
reform, prison law, penal politics and the history of punishment. She is a qualified
barrister and current Chairperson of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

PRISON POLICY IN
IRELAND
Politics, penal-welfarism and
political imprisonment
Mary Rogan
First published 2011 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2011 MARY ROGAN
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rogan, Mary.
Prison policy in Ireland: politics, penal-welfarism and political imprisonment/Mary Rogan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Prisons--Ireland. 2. Prison administration--Ireland. 3. Punishment--Ireland. I. Title.
HV9650.3.R64 2011
365¢.9417--dc22
2010038947
ISBN 0-203-82888-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-61618-8 hbk
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-61619-5 ppr
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-82888-5 ebook
To my parents, Anne and Séamus

CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction xv
1 Understanding prison policy: the sociology of
punishment and policy-making 1
Introduction 1
The sociology of punishment 1
Linking structural change and political choice: policy analysis 8
Theoretical perspectives on prison policy and its formation 9
Influences on policy 11
The Irish context 14
Policy analysis and the sociology of punishment for Ireland 18
A word on methodology 18
2 From Independence to the ‘Emergency’: Civil War
and conservative administration 20
Introduction 20
Opposition to the Treaty leads to conflict 20
The prison system in the Irish Free State 21
Detention during the Civil War 22
Reaction of detainees: resistance and organisation 25
Prisoner grievances 27
Public sympathy: prisoner support networks 28
The situation at the end of the Civil War 30
The plight of ‘ordinary’ detainees 31
viii  Prison Policy in Ireland
The re-establishment of normality 32
The General Prisons Board and the ‘ethos’ of prison policy 34
Declining prisoner numbers and closure of prisons 35
The dissolution of the General Prisons Board 36
The Department of Justice and prison policy 37
Prison policy in the post-Civil War period: caution and
conservatism 40
The nature of Free State public administration 45
Social change and prisons during the 1930s 50
Insularity and the British inheritance 52
The absence of a wider ‘community of ideas’ 52
3 The ‘Emergency’: the recurring effects of subversion
and stagnation 54
Introduction 54
Imprisonment and internment: securing the state 54
The political status of prisoners and the authority of the state 55
‘Ordinary’ imprisonment: liberalisation of prison regimes 58
Increased interest from outside the prison system 59
Inquest and inquiry following the end of the Emergency 62
The Labour Party Report 64
The Prison Rules 1947 68
Fianna Fáil loses Republican support 70
‘Liberalisation’ and changes in Irish social policy 71
4 The 1950s: low numbers and limited interest 74
Introduction 74
The first Inter-Party Government 74
Fianna Fáil return to power 80
The second Inter-Party Government 81
The Border Campaign and its effect on prison policy 82
Stasis in prison policy 1948–58 84
Political culture and social policy: drift and decay 84
Political culture and prison policy in the 1950s 88
Prison reform, not penal reform 89
5 The 1960s: ‘solo runs’ and social change 91
Introduction 91
A tale of two Ministers for Justice: a break with the past 92
Charles Haughey takes the reins: a transformed Department
of Justice 95
The Inter-Departmental Committee 97
Contents  ix
Department of Justice plans: radical changes envisaged 106
Innovation in prison policy becomes the aim not anathema 108
Haughey moves on 110
Lenihan as Minister for Justice: a continuity in discourse 111
Another new Minister for Justice: Micheál Ó Moráin 112
Rehabilitation in theory: recycling ideas and raised expectations 113
The Irish Society of Criminology 115
Research and the Department of Justice 115
Social investigation: media portrayal of prison policy 116
Rehabilitation in practice: symbolism in policy versus
execution in reality 117
The Criminal Justice Bill 1967 119
Ireland in the early 1960s: a time of change 121
The late 1960s: consolidation, a change of pace and conflicts 125
6 The 1970s: subversion, suspicion and tension 130
Introduction 130
Rehabilitation in the 1970s: an official aim 130
Consensus, caution and change in prison policy 132
New institutions: a reactive approach 135
The ‘Troubles’ 137
The Prisons Act 1972 139
Prison policy and Republican prisoners 141
Prisoner advocacy and protest 143
Secrecy and suspicion in the Department of Justice 146
Crisis management 147
Irish prison policy during the 1970s 148
Ireland in the 1970s: the Troubles, social expansion, and other
‘troubles’ ahead 150
Prison policy during the 1970s: the genesis of crisis? 154
7 The 1980s: crises and committees 155
Introduction 155
A prison system in crisis 156
The panacea of penal expansion 162
‘Getting by’: pragmatic prison policy 164
Crime and cost: concern in political debate 165
The Whitaker Committee 166
An embryonic politicisation of crime? 170
Ireland during the 1980s 171
Prison policy in the 1980s 176