Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Ruari-Santiago McBride and the anonymous reviewers who made comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of guest editors for this special issue, Gwenola Ricordeau and Joël Charbit. All errors and opinions remain my own.
1The movements for social, economic, and political transformation of the 1960s and 1970s inspired the proliferation of prisoners’ rights organizations internationally (Behan, 2018; Charbit, Ricordeau, 2018a; Huff, 1974; Lichtenstein, 2011; Rusche, Yaley, 1980; Singleton, 1973; Thompson, 2016; Wall, 2020; Woolpert, 1978). In the Republic of Ireland, prisoners’ rights movements were part of the struggle for social change internationally, but they were primarily bound up with the domestic social, political and penal environments.
- 1 In this paper, a distinction is made between “ordinary” and “political” prisoners as they are self- (...)
2In the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, most academic and popular attention to date has focussed on prisoners who campaigned for political status (Beresford, 1987; Kenny, 2017; McConville, 2003, 2013; McEvoy, 2001). The re-emergence of physical force movements demanding an end to British rule in Northern Ireland led to a sharp increase in the in the early 1970s number of IRA members who were imprisoned in the Republic of Ireland. Provisional IRA prisoners refused to accept the label of criminal and distinguished themselves and their activities from so-called ordinary or social (hereafter ordinary) prisoners. While they pursued improvements in prison conditions for themselves, and demanded to be treated as political prisoners, their focus remained on the political conflict outside.1
3With media attention, academic analysis and the public gaze mainly drawn to the issue of political status and the plight of politically aligned prisoners, this paper examines the movements representing ordinary prisoners which have been largely absent from general accounts of penal history in this period. However, most of the efforts for improvements in general prison conditions in the 1970s and 1980s in the Republic of Ireland came from organisations representing ordinary prisoners. In contrast to politically aligned prisoners, campaigns for penal reform by ordinary prisoners were significant, because their objective was to improve prison conditions, which they contended, should be for all prisoners.
4This paper’s focus is on organisations which represented ordinary prisoners, in particular, the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation (PRO). The outline of the paper is as follows: part one begins by examining the absence of the perspectives from, and accounts of daily life of, ordinary prisoners available to those investigating Ireland’s penal past. The next part outlines the emergence of the PRO. The response/s from the state to the demands for penal reform are then examined. The paper continues by evaluating the impact of ordinary prisoners and organisations representing them on progressing penal reform. It concludes by arguing that, despite their relative absence from the penal narrative, the PRO played a considerable role in the debates around penal reform in the Republic of Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s.
5Until recently, the study of criminology in the Republic of Ireland was described as an “absentee discipline” (Kilcommins et al., 2004). This phrase could also have been used to describe the study of penology, as it is widely recognised that there is a lack of data which poses challenges for those undertaking a study of the penal system in the Republic of Ireland (O’Donnell, 2008). Added to the deficiency in the material available to study penal history is the limited material surviving detailing the experience of incarceration. As late as 2008, O’Donnell (2008, 122, emphasis added) argued that “Quite simply, we do not know much about what it feels like to do time in the Republic of Ireland”.
6The raw data of prison life overwhelmingly comes from Provisional IRA prisoners (mainly in Northern Ireland) who have relayed their experiences to the outside world in memoir and autobiography (Campbell et al., 1994; Morrison, 1999; O’Rawe, 2005; Sands, 1993), and information in An Phoblacht, the newspaper of Sinn Féin. Many of the accounts described life during periods of heightened conflict in prisons, when the struggle inside became “war by other means” (McConville, 2003, 509). Nevertheless, with Provisional IRA prisoners determined to differentiate themselves from the rest of the prison population, they showed little interest in penal conditions for ordinary prisoners. In contrast, there is sparse material available that relays the penal experience of ordinary prisoners, or their struggles for improved conditions. Therefore, we have limited material to work with in examining their prison experience.
- 2 Joe Costello held various positions in the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation. He was the former chair (...)
7During the 1970s and 80s, Irish society knew little about life inside Ireland’s penal institutions from official sources. The Department of Justice released limited data and reports that appeared were routinely out of date (Rogan, 2012, 23). The Department was very wary, at times seemingly hostile to any outside interest in its penal institutions (O’Donnell, 2008, 124-125). Even the usually timid visiting committee reports, which were regularly delayed in publication and restricted in access, told us little about life inside Ireland’s prisons. Despite sporadic attempts by the Department of Justice to launch public relations initiatives with media tours of prisons (Brady, 2014, 64), one journalist who had visited a prison noted that “the prison system is dominated by a paranoia about security, dictated by the Department of Justice” (Brennan, 1981). The situation was so acute that the chair of the PRO, Joe Costello after being obstructed in his attempts to gain access to visiting committee reports took legal action against the Department of Justice to get reports published in a timely manner (Interview with Author, recorded 18 April 2017).2
8One unofficial source of information came from the Prison Study Group (PSG). Established in 1973 by concerned members of civic society with a grant from University College Dublin, their investigation found a “very closed system” as the department and the minister for justice “imposed severe limitations” on their research. They were therefore “forced to piece together a picture of the prison process from accounts by people who have experienced it in different capacities” (PSG, 1973, 4).
9Along with the paucity of first-hand accounts by ordinary prisoners about life inside (although see O’Sullivan, O’Donnell, 2012, Part II, which go some way to rectifying this dearth of information) and lack of official data, there is limited literature on protests movements involving ordinary prisoners (Behan, 2018; Wall, 2020). This is notwithstanding Rogan’s (2011, 144) assertion in her history of penal policy in Ireland, that is it possible to view the establishment of the Prisoners Union (representing ordinary prisoners), “as part of the more general trend of protest and agitating groups developing in Ireland”. While scholars have made brief references to the emergence of the PRO (Behan, 2014; Kilcommins et al., 2004, 71; Rogan, 2011, 144), a number of publications have not included them in accounts of this period. They did not warrant a mention in individual prison histories (Carey, 2000) and are absent from edited anthologies examining various aspects of the criminal justice system in Ireland (Healy et al., 2016; O’Mahony, 1993). Nevertheless, the experience of ordinary prisoner organising is arguably more important to understanding penal politics and prison reform in this period than the more widely studied politically aligned prisoners. In his study of the early years of the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation, Oisín Wall contends that it became the “longest-lasting and most vocal penal reform organisation in Ireland” until the formation of the Irish Penal Reform Trust in 1994. He argues that “by 1976 the PRO was an increasingly legitimate voice in Ireland’s public discourse on prisons” (Wall, 2020, 388).
10Outside the Republic of Ireland, prisoners’ rights movements representing ordinary prisoners have been somewhat neglected in anthologies of sociales movements (see for example, Goodwin, Jasper, 2015). In Britain, Ryan (2003, 68) noted that two widely-read academic and popular texts on imprisonment and the penal system neglected the contribution of prisoner unions and prisoners’ rights movements. However, more in-depth studies of prisoners’ rights movements (and this Special Issue will no doubt add to the literature on the subject) have been undertaken, with critical analyses published in English of prisoners’ rights movements in England (Fitzgerald, 1975, 1977), France (Donzelot, 1975), Italy (Modona, 1975), Scandinavia (Mathiesen, Roine, 1975; Ward, 1972), and Spain (Bergalli, 1995). Charbit, and Ricordeau (2015) examined the Association Syndicale des Prisonniers de France (ASPF) which was active in the mid-1980s. As an abolitionist organization, it campaigned for the right of association and trade union rights for prisoners. Utilising primary and secondary sources and interviews, their research considered abolitionist campaigns and prisoner struggles in France since the mid-1980s. Tibbs (2012, xi) argued that the “history of the prisoners unions in the US have received scant scholarly attention” and he set out to rectify this with his study of the North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union (NCPLU). Previously, Cummins (1994) had examined the prisoners’ movement in California from the 1950s to 1980s and subsequent to Tibbs, Heather Ann Thompson’s seminal work (2016) on the Attica uprising and its aftermath won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2017. Charbit and Ricordeau (2018a) have moved the research on, producing a comparative study of prison organising and prisoners’ unions in France and the United States.
- 3 Despite its title, the Jail Journal was printed outside the prison, with articles by prisoners and (...)
11This paper is based on first-hand narratives from prisoners and their supporters, accounts of conditions in Irish prisons, and contemporaneous reports of protests from newspapers. The longest-serving and most high-profile leader of the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation throughout its existence – Joe Costello – agreed to be interviewed for this research. The themes covered included the reasons for the establishment of the PRO, its programme, campaigns and government response. The interview dealt with his analysis of the success or otherwise of the organisation, the treatment of ordinary, compared to politically aligned prisoners, and the reasons for the demise of the PRO. The paper draws on commentaries and data from the Jail Journal which was published by the PRO, copies of which are available in the National Library of Ireland.3 The PRO argued that their own publication was necessary, because “newspaper exposure of the prison lacked one important thing: an expression of prisoners’ point of view” (Jail Journal 1, no. 2). Even when journalists were invited to visit prisons on media tours, they were not allowed to speak to prisoners (Irish Times, November 19, 1980).
12Other sources used for this study include the Prison Study Group, a civic society initiative with a grant from the Department of Psychiatry at University College Dublin, which produced a report in 1973 on conditions in Irish prisons. The Commission of Inquiry into the Irish Penal System in 1979 – organised by among others the PRO – produced a report from the proceedings (MacBride, 1982). In 1985, the government-appointed Committee of Inquiry into the Penal System published its report. The 1947 Prison Rules are also scrutinised to understand the rules and regulations that governed prisoners’ lives.
13Drawing on accounts of prison experiences in trying to understand the penal past is not without its difficulties. As Bosworth (2001) points out, it is a challenge for all social historians, who have long recognised that those on periphery of society: poor people, women, children, slaves have tended to leave few records of their lives. The challenge of including voices of ordinary prisoners is particularly heightened with the lack of sources available, which can lead to the subjugated knowledge (Foucault, 1980) of prisoners being excluded from narratives of the penal past. More often than not, the perspectives that are more readily (or sometimes the only ones) available in archives, public records offices and online collections come from official and semi-official sources: prison departments and prison officers’ representative bodies respectively.
- 4 See Rod Morgan’s (1991) account of the resources the Home Office and the Prison Department allocate (...)
14Historically, first-hand accounts from prisoners are rare for a variety of reasons. Prisoners seldom kept (and indeed, keep) written records “setting forth the ideology of the inmate population, its myths or its mores” (Sykes, 1958, xix). This can be due to censorship, with many prison systems imposing strict guidelines on what prisoners can officially relay to the outside world. This dissuades them from keeping written records as if these materials are discovered and deemed to transgress prison rules, it can lead to official punishment or unofficial sanction. Even when they are available, prisoner accounts seldom provide the level of detail recorded in official accounts. However, drawing on their individual experiences of incarceration, rather than providing empirical details across the prison estate (see for example, James, 2003; Lord, 2015; Hunt, 1999), prison memoirs can provide some rich raw data to help scholars understand the experience of life inside. While recognising that prisoners’ perspectives can be difficult to unearth, if they exist at all, without them we are liable to get a one-dimensional presentation of the past. Ordinary prisoners rarely have the resources, media contacts, PR and communication strategy to set the agenda when it comes to creating a narrative in popular or media accounts, especially when social order breaks down in prison.4
15Acknowledging that the sources that are available are limited and sketchy, this paper pivots the focus away from politically aligned prisoners, and considers the role of ordinary prisoners in campaigning for improvements in the penal system in the 1970s and 1980s. As the PRO was an organisation that sought to represent the voice of the ordinary prisoner in reforming the penal system, a substantive examination of their place in penal history is necessary. This is particularly so in light of the emergence of ‘criminology from below’ (Sim, 1994), utilising the insider perspective, and convict criminology (Aresti, Darke, 2016). It follows the more well-established “history from below” (Thompson, 1966), the purpose of which is, according to Davidson (2019), “the recovery of voices missing from the historical narrative”.
- 5 This refers to the practice of prisoners using chamber pots when they are locked in their cell and (...)
16When the state that became the Republic of Ireland was established in 1922, it took over existing prisons, many of which had been built in the Victorian era. With the first new greenfield prison not being built until 1989, by the 1970s the prison estate and penal conditions needed modernisation. The problem of over-crowding was exacerbated by the conditions in which prisoners had to live (PSG, 1973). The majority of prisoners had to “slop out”.5 Prisoners had to spend over 15 hours daily in their cell and there were limited productive out-of-cell activities. While there continued to be very traditional prison industries these were “menial” and did “not assist the prisoner’s chances of employment on release” (PSG, 1973, 89). The educational facilities were minimal, usually only literacy being available, with the exception of St. Patrick’s Institution (for juveniles) which offered a range of subjects (PSG, 1973, 89-90). The majority of prisoners came from areas of acute economic deprivation as a study noted that the “offender who ends up in prison is rarely from a well-off suburb” (PSG, 1973, 34). The Prison Study Group concluded that “Irish prisons do not rehabilitate and at present they are punitive” (PSG, 1973, 90).
17By international standards, imprisonment rates were low. Between 1926 and 1971, there were less than 1,000 prisoners each year. In 1951, the daily average number of prisoners was 488, with an average imprisonment rate of 17 per 100,000. By 1971 this had risen to 926 prisoners, with an imprisonment rate of 31 per 100,000 (O’Sullivan, O’Donnell, 2012, 5-6). This compared to England and Wales at 81 per 100,000, Denmark at 70 per 100,000, Sweden at 61 per 100,000 and the USA at 200 per 100,000 (Waller, Chan 1974, 58). Although the number of prisoners was low, the conditions of confinement were sub-standard. This account by a former prisoner which appeared in the Jail Journal (vol. 1, no. 10) in the mid-1970s describes what he encountered on his first night in Mountjoy Prison, the largest in the state:
The dirty mattress, the dirty bedclothes, the filthy rusted commode in the corner, the dirty eating utensils, the filthy plastic basins ingrained with dirt, the human excrement plastered on the walls and the all-pervading stench of this in the cell must surely be the ultimate test of a man’s character. Worse was yet to come in the shape of the toilet facilities which epitomised everything that must be the nadir of human degradation.
18Similar accounts of these conditions in Ireland’s penal establishments appeared throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
19Prison discipline was regulated under prison rules dating from 1947. For breaking these rules, punishment could be harsh. A governor could impose “close confinement” for up three days; dietary reduction up to 14 days and suspension of privileges for up to three months (rule 69). The Minister for Justice had more widespread powers to punish. Along with disobeying an order from officers being a breach of prison discipline, there was a dizzying array of activities for which a prisoner could be punished: from being “idle, careless, or negligent at work” to being “indecent in language, act or gesture”, or if they conversed or held “intercourse with another prisoner without authority” (rule 68).
- 6 The Irish Republican Army split at a Convention in 1969. The Official IRA adopted a more left-wing (...)
20As a result of renewed Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity with the outbreak of the Conflict in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, there was an increase in the number of prisoners in the Republic of Ireland. Historically, politically aligned prisoners have sought separation from others in the penal system (McConville, 2003, 2013). It was almost inevitable that IRA prisoners would engage in disturbances to assert their demand to be treated as political prisoners. Provisional IRA prisoners were very keen to distinguish themselves from ordinary prisoners and at times engaged in what they described as “militant action” to pursue their demands, including the “removal of non-Republican prisoners [...] from the Provisional section” of Portlaoise Prison (Ruari Ó Brádaigh, President of Provisional Sinn Fein, cited in Irish Times, January 8, 1975). Reflecting the split militarily and ideologically outside, differences emerged among politically aligned groups in their attitudes towards ordinary prisoners. In contrast to the Provisional IRA, the Official IRA, nominally on ceasefire since 1972, sought to distance itself from the tactics of the Provisional IRA and their campaign for political status (Hanley, Millar, 2010).6 Declaring their left-wing credentials, Official IRA prisoners refused to demand separation, arguing that “ordinary prisoners are unconscious political prisoners” (Hanley, Millar, 2010, 211).
21While politically aligned prisoners were protesting, so too were ordinary prisoners. Amid discontent at the conditions of confinement, the standard of the food and lack of recreational facilities, protests by ordinary prisoners in Portlaoise Prison in late 1972 and early 1973 led to the creation of the Portlaoise Prisoners’ Union (PPU) and eventually when it spread, the Prisoners Union. (For further analysis of the Prisoners Union, see Behan, 2018.) On release from Portlaoise Prison a number of former prisoners decided to continue to fight for improved prison conditions and an ad hoc Committee for Prison Reform called a public meeting in July 1973. This was to generate public support “to preserve, protect and extend the rights of prisoners, and seek the implementation of the 11 demands of the Portlaoise Prisoners Union” (John Kearns, cited in Irish Press, 7 July 1973). This meeting of former prisoners and others interested in penal reform established the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation, specifically for what they termed ‘social’ or ‘ordinary’ prisoners because, they argued, “no group outside spoke out on their behalf” (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 1). Besides, those convicted for politically related activities were aligned with political parties and had established their own organisations outside prison: the Relatives Action Committee for Provisional IRA prisoners and Saoirse for Official IRA prisoners (Magill, 1977).
22In the first edition of the Jail Journal (vol. 1, no. 1), the PRO outlined its list of demands, which reflected their social and political analysis. It was concerned with prison conditions, and the wider penal system, rather than their status inside. They believed that the “only solution is to change the social and economic conditions of society and so automatically do away with the need for crime”. In the meantime, the PRO called for “the immediate implementation of a comprehensive system of penal reform in Irish jails”.
23The extensive list of demands ranged from improvements in the provision of education and vocational training, to extended recreation facilities, and improved visiting conditions, with more regular visits. Mirroring demands of prisoners’ organisations elsewhere (Huff, 1974; Singleton, 1973; Woolpert, 1978), the PRO demanded that prisoners should have the right to establish a union, with trade union rates of pay for prison work. In terms of prisoners’ rights, they wanted the right to vote in local and general elections and to join political parties; the right to enter into marriage; the right to be legally represented and to call witnesses in internal disciplinary proceedings and for a member of the Prisoners Union to be present (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no.1).
24Finally, the PRO echoed the critiques of prison governance that was a feature of prisoners’ rights organisation internationally (see for example, Fitzgerald, 1977; Thompson, 2016). They demanded that the prison system be administered by a statutory board appointed by the Minister for Justice with its “members to be drawn from a cross-section of the community with knowledge of and an interest in the welfare of the prisoners”, with “an ex-prisoner, a serving prisoner and a trade union representative among its members” (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 1).
25Reflecting their desire to be a voice for prisoners, it was agreed at the inaugural meeting of the PRO that the 14-person executive would comprise at least fifty per cent former prisoners (Joe Costello: Interview with Author, April 2017). The activities of the PRO were broadly in three categories: a) campaigning and activism; b) practical initiatives and c) research into the penal system. Activism included convening meetings, organising marches and campaigning for changes in legislation (Joe Costello: Interview with Author, April 2017). Along with practical initiatives for arrestees, prisoners and their families, the PRO believed that the lack of information, combined with official and semi-official accounts about life inside prison gave the public a skewed understanding of the institution. Along with the publication of the Jail Journal, which the PRO claimed had a circulation of up to 3,000 copies (Jail Journal vol. 1, no. 12), it published research (PRO, 1978; Byrne et al., 1981) in the hope that the reality of life behind bars would stimulate the public to demand an improvement in prison conditions.
26In order to highlight the conditions in Irish prisons, the PRO jointly convened a commission of inquiry in 1979, which reported that the Irish prison system was “demoralised and outmoded” (MacBride, 1982, 29). Echoing a number of demands for improvements in conditions and the enhancement of the rights of prisoners contained in the PRO programme, this commission endorsed prisoners’ right to form associations and unions, and it recommended that all prisoners have access to the franchise (MacBride, 1982, 93). Locating prisoners’ rights within a human rights framework, and drawing on international standards, it called for the application of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (UNSMR) in Irish Prison Rules.
27As their campaign escalated, the PRO became more steadfast in their critique of Irish prisons which did not “rehabilitate people or help them overcome their problems”. They were simply “to make life as unbearable as possible for the prisoner in an attempt to ensure that the stay is made so uncomfortable that he/she does not come back. As the rest of our legal system, our prisons have nothing to do with justice or rights” (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 12).
28Despite the conditions outlined above, the government rejected criticism of the penal system. During a heated debate in the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament) in 1970, Desmond O’Malley, the Minister for Justice, when asked about conditions in Portlaoise Prison, refused to accept that there was “public disquiet on this matter”. He believed that “the conditions in the prisons can be better than those that some of the prisoners have come from outside” (Dáil Debates, 5 December 1972, vol. 264, col. 964). Despite these assertions, his successor, Patrick Cooney recognised improvements in prison conditions and modernisation of the penal estate were long overdue (Irish Press, 27 October 1973; Brady 2014, 69). However, while recognising the need for reform, Patrick Cooney rejected criticism of Irish prisons. “Not only did they compare favourably with the best in Europe”, according to the Minister for Justice, “but they were in accord with and in many respects, exceeded the standards set down in the Council of Europe” (cited in Irish Independent, 27 October 1973).
29Penal practice does not take place in a vacuum. Nor does penal reform. The demands for penal reform and indeed a state’s response reflect the wider social and political environment in society. While Irish prions were, according to the PRO, “too old, too small, dilapidated and unhygienic” (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 1), these conditions were not out of sync with penal conditions internationally. Indeed, comparable conditions spawned many similar organisations, whose demands were met (with a few notable exceptions such as in Scandinavia, see Mathiesen, 2000; Mathiesen, Roine 1975) with a similar rejection from prison management and state authorities.
30In France, the Comité d’Action des Prisonniers or CAP (Prisoners Action Committee) was formed in 1972 (Charbit, Ricordeau, 2018a). A year later, the Prisoners’ Action Group – which became Justice Action – was founded in Australia on the back of a number of revolts by prisoners (Charbit, Ricordeau, 2018b, 5). Less than two years before the establishment of the PRO, the uprising at Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York in September 1971, highlighted a range of issues, including sub-standard conditions of confinement and concerns with prison governance (Thompson, 2016). By the time the four-day uprising was over, as well as entering into the annals of the prisoners’ rights movements in the US and internationally, Attica “became a household word and a part of our popular culture” (Munro-Bjorklund, 1991, 55). In 1972, the Preservation for the Rights of Prisoners (PROP) held the first national prisoners strike which highlighted the deficiencies in conditions in British prisons (Fitzgerald, 1977). Similar to response in the Republic of Ireland, the British government refused to negotiate with, or recognise the right of, PROP to represent prisoners or meet any of its demands. While the government had previously accepted that many British prisons were “grossly overcrowded”, and most of them were “obsolescent” (Home Office, 1969, 2), it was not sufficiently jolted into action to rectify the situation. By 1981, the House of Commons heard how the “conditions in Her Majesty’s Prisons are now […] an affront to a civilised society” (Roy Hattersley MP, Hansard, HC, 2 December 1981, vol. 14, col. 274).
31Ireland’s closed institutions – reflecting wider society – would open only slowly and somewhat erratically to the tide of social change, modernisation and international influences (Keogh, 2005; Lee, 1989; O’Sullivan, O’Donnell, 2012). The limited finances of the new state and the low numbers imprisoned meant that penal reform was not a political or social priority, even a generation after the state came into existence. A number of studies about penal policy in the Republic of Ireland have detailed the protracted and sometimes idiosyncratic nature of penal reform (O’Donnell, 2009; Rogan, 2011, 2012; Kilcommins et al., 2004), described by one scholar as “grindingly slow” (O’Donnell, 2011, 489). Compared to other countries, there was a “stunted understanding” of prison issues in the Republic of Ireland and this represented an “impediment to sound policy making” (O’Donnell, 2008, 122).
32There were other reasons for the lack of penal reform. When the state was first established, there was relatively little political interest in prison issues, or innovation in penal policy. In the early decades of the new state, despite many parliamentarians having spent time in Irish and British penal institutions, they showed little interest in improving conditions, modernizing the prison estate, or reforming the penal system. In rejecting the criminalization of their cause, and particularly to distance their activities from the deeds of other prisoners, the released politicians sought to distinguish their imprisonment from that of ordinary prisoners (Behan, 2011). In 1970, the absence of penal reform was noted by Noel Browne, a Labour parliamentarian, who believed that successive Justice ministers who had spent time in prison must have been aware of “how stupid and futile and degrading is the whole principle of locking up people and how utterly sterile it is and unproductive of any change”. He was scathing about ministers, “distinguished jail birds” who had spent time in prison, but refused to reform the penal system, noting that “few of them took the opportunity to introduce changes which were needed” (Dáil Debates, 1970, vol. 247, cols. 121-22).
33As with penal policy innovation in other jurisdictions, prisoners and their representative have rarely been consulted about penal reform (Fitzgerald, 1977). The PRO claimed that the government banned its organ, the Jail Journal from entering prisons (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 2). Articles for the Journal about life inside prison were smuggled out to bypass the censor’s office and some copies were subsequently secretly passed back into the prisons. At times, the government tried to prevent members of the PRO from visiting prisoners because they believed they would foment unrest. Allegations that members of the PRO were harassed by gardai (police) appeared regularly in the Jail Journal (vol. 2, no. 6).
34The outbreak of the Conflict in Northern Ireland had a significant impact on the political and penal priorities of various governments during this period, especially in the area of criminal justice and penal policy (Brady, 2014; Ferriter, 2014). While concentrating their energies on dealing with politically aligned prisoners, it “deflected a large amount of attention, resources and energies from ‘ordinary’ prison matters” (Rogan, 2009, 8).
35In order to undermine the authenticity of the concerns raised by the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation, the government claimed that it did not represent prisoners, and argued that it was a front for some of to those convicted for politically motivated activities and their allies outside. Successive governments were keen to associate the PRO with Official Sinn Fein and the Official IRA (Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 2). They refused to meet with, or engage with the appeals for reform from the PRO. When they established their inquiry into the penal system, Minister for Justice, Gerard Collins, refused to engage with it, because he did not wish “to be put in a position of appearing to give some form of official approval for an exercise prompted by the organisation” (cited in MacBride, 1982, 108). “The establishment”, according to Joe Costello, “was very much opposed to the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation. We were seen as troublemakers, raising issues that obviously authorities would prefer weren’t raised. We were highlighting some of the injustices that were taking place” (Interview with Author, April 2017).
36In contrast to ordinary, the politically aligned prisoners had greater resources and levels of support, partly due to their political movements being able to mobilise around their cause. Despite the efforts of the PRO, they had neither the resources nor the public appeal of the politically aligned prisoners. While rejecting demands for political status from politically aligned prisoners, the state neutralized their protests by accepting their representation, improving their conditions, and effectively recognizing them as a different category of prisoner (Behan, 2018). At the same time successive governments undermined and distrusted the campaigns for improvements in conditions for ordinary prisoners.
37One of the primary outcomes of the campaigns on behalf of ordinary prisoners during these years “served to prompt suspicion, fear and hostility rather than co-operation, understanding and sympathy among policy-makers” (Rogan, 2011, 145). Despite the prevailing prison conditions, prison administrators and politicians resisted the demands of the PRO, rejected their claim to represent prisoners and derided the idea that ordinary prisoners had any contribution to make to debates on penal reform.
38Four years after the PRO convened its commission of inquiry (MacBride, 1982), the government established their own assessment of the penal system, the first official inquiry into conditions in Irish prisons in the history of the state. Despite the government’s refusal to engage with the PRO’s commission, the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Penal System (which became widely known as the Whitaker Report (1985), named after its chairperson) echoed many of the criticisms of the penal system from the PRO. Several of its recommendations were similar to the proposals from the PRO. Joe Costello made a submission on behalf of the PRO. He was happy with the findings of the Whitaker Report. It was “a benchmark for moving forward.” He continued: “We felt we achieved what we sought to achieve. We put prison reform on the map”. It was now time to get the policies implemented (Interview with Author, April 2017). Although it was never fully dissolved, Costello felt that the PRO had achieved its mandate and the organisation faded away.
39Despite the reports from the PRO and the government-appointed committee which highlighted acute deficiencies in the Irish prison system, the optimism that penal reform would follow was not realized. Although the Whitaker Report became a benchmark for many penal reformers by which to review progress and conditions in the Irish penal system, translating the recommendations into reality was a far more difficult task. The Irish government’s penal policies remained “remote and resistant to influence” from pressure groups, including campaigners and the churches (Tomlinson, 1995, 208). The penal reform advocated by the PRO was not achieved, and by the first decade of the 21st century, the Whitaker Report’s recommendations remained as “persuasive today as when they were first made” (O’Donnell, 2008, 126).
40Analysing the progress within the penal system in light of the demands of the PRO, it was not until the late in the 20th and early 21st Centuries that improvements in conditions began, with parts of the prison estate being modernised and the construction of new prisons. The end of “slopping out” in Mountjoy – Ireland’s largest prison – did not occur until 2014, with plans to eliminate it in all prisons by 2021 (Irish Prison Service [IPS], 2017, 6). By the end of the 1980s, schools had been established in every prison (Warner, 2002). Irish prisoners were allowed to vote in the 2007 general election, with the introduction of legislation to enfranchise all prisoners (Behan, 2014). New prison rules were introduced in 2007. Although the 1947 rules were understandably routinely ignored, that they remained in operation, if not effect until 2007, indicated not just a lack of concern in developing a modern penal policy and governance structure in Irish prisons, but a distinct absence of urgency in penal reform.
41Increasingly, from the 1970s, the state was being criticised using a human rights discourse framed around international standards. Reports from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) which visited Ireland for the first time in 1993 made Irish prisons more transparent, but conditions remained below par. In its 1998 visit, the CPT noted that despite new prison rules being promised in the 1993 inspection, they still had not been introduced (CPT, 1999, 22). Overcrowding was a significant source of concern during the 1998, 2002 and 2006 visits (CPT, 1999, 2003, 2007). In particular, the CPT noted that what it termed “the old and dilapidated prisons”, raised “concerns as to the safe and humane treatment of prisoners” kept in these institutions (CPT, 2007, 17). By the time of its sixth visit in 2014, the CPT acknowledged the “considerable steps taken by the Irish authorities to reform the prison system”, in particular overcrowding and the conditions of detention. Nevertheless, there were still 330 prisoners “slopping-out” and it called on the Irish government to eradicate the need for this practice (CPT, 2015, 7). While welcoming the new complaints system introduced by the Irish Prison Service, it recommended a timelier process to deal with grievances (CPT, 2015, 51).
42Prison oversight and accountability mechanisms were still hopelessly inadequate at the end of the 1980s. They are still not up to international best practice today (Behan, Kirkham, 2016; Irish Penal Reform Trust [IPRT], 2017, 59-63). It was not until 2002 that the Office of the Inspector of Prisons was created and it was put on a statutory footing with the Prisons Act 2007. Although legislation has been promised (Behan, Kirkham, 2016; IPRT, 2017), at the time of writing, Irish prisoners still do not have a fully independent complaints mechanism and have no access to the Ombudsman, despite a recommendation in the Whitaker Report (1985, 16) over 30 years ago.
43The PRO regularly criticised visiting committees as being too close to prison management (see for example, Jail Journal, vol. 1, no. 1). Even when independent reports were indicating that Irish prisons were below acceptable human rights standards, some visiting committees were issuing positive, even glowing reports. While visiting committees are no longer allowed to mete out punishment and dietary punishment has been abolished, their composition and procedures are still routinely criticised by both prisoners and penal reformers (see Behan, 2014, 164-172; IPRT, 2009).
44As regards the demands from the PRO that all criminal records be expunged five years after an individual leaves prison, the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act 2016 was far more limited in scope. The PRO called for the appointment of a Prisons Board to administer the prisons with broad community representation from those “with knowledge of and an interest in the welfare of the prisoners’ including trade union and prisoner representatives” (Jail Journal vol. 1, no. 1). By 2017 the Irish Prison Service was operating as an “executive agency within the Department of Justice and Equality” (IPS, 2018, 10). None of the members of the executive agency were appointed as representatives of prisoners.
45Despite successive governments rejecting their legitimacy, through its approach of personalising the prison experience, and focussing on the conditions for ordinary prisoners, the PRO in its early years “brought a new perspective to public discussions about prisoners’ rights” (Wall, 2020, 409). Through the Jail Journal and other publications, they gave a voice to prisoners and ex-prisoners and disseminated information to the public in their attempts to encourage a public debate on penal reform. This paper established that by the time of the PRO’s demise, their demands had not been met. The prison system was unreformed, conditions of confinement remained the same, or in some cases deteriorated, and prisoners’ rights were unchanged. Nevertheless, the PRO brought to the public’s attention the conditions that existed in Irish prisons, provided signposts for penal reform, and pre-empted many of the recommendations that appeared in the report from the government-appointed Whitaker Committee in 1985.
46This paper used a study of the Prisoners’ Rights Organisation to extend the analytical focus of the campaigns for penal reform throughout the 1970s and 1980s in the Republic of Ireland. It considered how locating and including prisoners’ voices in a penal narrative can be a complicated and challenging exercise for those studying and writing penal history. It argued that overlooking or delegitimising the role of prisoners’ rights movements, as successive government did throughout the 1970s and 1980s, risks taking the narrative of one side at face value. This is particularly perilous in such conflicted situations, with usually starkly different accounts of events from different actors. Without an analysis of the role of prisoners’ rights movements in progressing penal reform, we are in danger of getting a one-dimensional history drawn from official or semi-official accounts.
47The official line coming from successive governments sought to undermine the PRO’s claim to represent prisoners. They challenged their criticism of the penal system by labelling them as subversive and radical. The PRO was primarily concerned with penal reform and wider changes within the criminal justice system. Instead of acknowledging the views of one of key stakeholders within the penal system – ordinary prisoners and their allies – successive governments undermined their legitimacy, dismissed their right to organise and resisted any attempt at representation. While protests by politically aligned prisoners have drawn media attention and academic analysis, a study of the campaigns by organisations representing ordinary prisoners indicates the significant role they played in advocating for improved conditions in Ireland’s penal institutions. The perspectives of ordinary prisoners and their concerns particularised by organisations such as the PRO are important to see “history as a whole cloth” (Thompson, 1986, 495). Weaving an analysis of these organisations into that cloth is essential, in order to take account of the role of prisoners’ rights movements in penal history, and appreciate their contribution to penal reform.