Ghosts Beyond Our Realm

This study explores the influence of the Human Rights Act (1998) on prison officer understandings of prisoner human rights. Utilising the insights of discourse analysis, the implementation of the Human Rights Act (1998) is understood within the complex interrelationships of penology, law, penal policy, and occupational culture. In so doing, this book utilises a neo-abolitionist normative framework to assess the legitimacy of the current restrictive interpretations and marginalisation of human rights in penological discourses and prison service policies. Central is an empirical study of prison officer occupational culture which critically explores how prisoners become constructed as ghost like figures whose needs are denied and othered as beyond the realm of humanity. Against this dehumanising backdrop the author calls for the development of a positive rights agenda and the promotion of alternative means of dealing with wrongdoers that recognises their shared humanity. This study will be of interest to sociologists, penologists and criminologists as well as human rights professionals and activists.