Abstract
Traditionally, discussions, research and court judgements within the field of prisons and human rights have almost exclusively been a matter of balancing the state’s legitimate use of power and security concerns against the individual prisoners’ rights. The question of whether, how and to what degree the use of imprisonment has also affected the rights of people living outside of prison has for many years been left out of consideration. This has certainly been the case with prisoners’ children — a group of people whose rights are clearly affected through the use of imprisonment.
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Notes
Norval Morris, “The Contemporary Prison: 1965–Present”, in The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, ed. Norval Morris and David J. Rothman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 219.
Peter Scharff Smith, “Fængsler og menneskerettigheder internationalt og i Danmark”, in Ret og samfund, ed. Jacob Sejer Pedersen (Copenhagen: Frydenlund, 2007).
“The heyday of the prisoners’ rights movement roughly spanned the period from 1960 to 1980.” See James B. Jacobs, Stateville. The Penitentiary in Mass Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 183.
Regarding the United States, see Edgardo Rotman, “The Failure of Reform: United States, 1865–1965”, and Norval Morris, “The Contemporary Prison: 1965– Present”, in The Oxford History of the Prison, ed. Norval Morris and David J. Rothman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Regarding Germany, see L. Lazarus, Contrasting Prisoners’ Rights: A Comparative Examination of Germany and England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 34.
Quoted from Vivien Stern, A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998), 197.
Dirk van Zyl Smit and Sonja Snacken, Principles of European Prison Law and Policy: Penology and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 10.
Anette Faye Jacobsen, Børn i alle lande: Om det internationale arbejde for børns rettigheder [Children in All Countries: About the International Work for Children’s Rights] (Copenhagen: The Danish Centre for Human Rights, 1994), 6.
See H. J. Engbo and P. S. Smith, Fængsler og menneskerettigheder (Copenhagen: Jurist-og Økonomforbundets Forlag, 2012).
Stephanie Lagoutte, “The Human Rights Framework”, in Children of Imprisoned Parents, ed. P. S. Smith and L. Gampell (Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Human Rights, Eurochips and University of Ulster, 2011), 34 ff.
For a discussion of article 3 and the exact wording — and the implications of this — see Jean Tomkin, Orphans of Justice. In Search of the Best Interests of the Child When a Parent is Imprisoned: A Legal Analysis (Geneva: Quaker United Nations Office, August 2009), 20 f.
Ria Wolleswinkel, “The Legal Background”, in Children of Imprisoned Parents: European Perspectives on Good Practice, ed. Liz Ayre, Kate Philbrick and Marielle Reiss (Montrouge: Eurochips, 2006), 17.
Quoted from Nell Bernstein, All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated (New York: New Press, 2005), 7.
See, for example, L. Moore, U. Convery and P. Scraton, “The Northern Ireland Case Study”, Children of Imprisoned Parents, ed. L. Gampell and P.S. Smith (Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Human Rights, Eurochips and University of Ulster, 2011),133 f.
Quoted from Marlene Alejos, Babies and Small Children Residing in Prisons (Geneva: Quaker United Nations Office, 2005), 22.
See Lia Sacerdote et al., “The Italian Case Study”, in Children of Imprisoned Parents, ed. L. Gampell and P. S. Smith (Copenhagen: The Danish Institute for Human Rights, Eurochips and University of Ulster, 2011), 168.
Natalia D. Tapia and Michael S. Vaughn “Legal Issues Regarding Medical Care for Pregnant Inmates”, The Prison Journal 90, no. 4 (2010), 438.
Tarja Pösö, Rosi Enroos and Tarja Vierula “Children Residing in Prison With Their Parents: An Example of Institutional Invisibility”, The Prison Journal 90, no. 4 (2006), 517.
Andrew Coyle, A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management: Handbook for Prison Staff, (London: International Centre for Prison Studies, 2002), 134.
International Centre for Prison Studies, “Guidance Note 13: Reforming Women’s prisons”, in Guidance Notes on Pirson Reform (London: International Centre for Prison Studies, 2004), 7 f. See also Wolleswinkel (2002, 196 f.).
David Ramsbotham, Prisongate: The Shocking State of Britain’s Prisons and the Need for Visionary Change (London: Free Press, 2003), 18 f.
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© 2014 Peter Scharff Smith
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Smith, P.S. (2014). Children of Imprisoned Parents and Their Human Rights. In: When the Innocent are Punished. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137414298_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137414298_6
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