As prison populations continue to expand across the western world, the question of the rights of prisoners has become an increasingly pressing issue, particularly in the light of new human rights discourses.

This important new book gives voice to a diverse range of viewpoints arising out of this debate in the Australian context; however, the issues raised will have powerful echoes elsewhere. The contributors to this book include the prisoners themselves, human rights activists, academics, criminal justice policy makers, and practitioners.

Overall the book presents a powerful argument that prisoners do and should have rights in any society that professes to be a democracy, bringing to the fore a debate that society would often prefer to forget.

Table of Contents

PART I: PRISONS AND PRISONERS
CHAPTER 1: Prisoners and the penal estate in Australia - Russell Hogg
Words from the prisoners: Impacts of overcrowding
CHAPTER 2: The rights of Indigenous prisoners - Loretta Kelly
Words from the prisoners: Prisoners at risk
CHAPTER 3: Deprivation of liberty - deprivation of rights - Debbie Kilroy & Anne Warner
Words from the prisoners: Family
CHAPTER 4: Experiences of inmates with an intellectual disability - Jenny Green
Words from the prisoners: Staying healthy in prison
CHAPTER 5: Prisoners of difference - Greta Bird
Words from the prisoners: Catering for prisoners speaking English as a second language

PART II: REGULATING PRISON AND PRISONERS' RIGHTS
CHAPTER 6: "Not the King's enemies": prisoners and their rights in Australian history - Mark Finnane and Tony Woodyatt
Words from the prisoners: Law and Order (a poem) - Noel Han
CHAPTER 7: Televising the invisible: prisoners, prison reform and the media - Catherine Lumby
Words from prisoner advocates: Queensland Prisons: 1980s and 1990s - Margaret Reynolds, former Qld Senator (ALP)
CHAPTER 8: An insider's view: human rights and excursions from the flat lands - Craig W.J. Minogue
Words from the prisoners: Legal assistance
CHAPTER 9: Protection of prisoners' rights in Australian private prisons - John Rynne
Words from the prisoners: Impacts of privatisation
CHAPTER 10: Prisoners as citizens: a view from Europe - Vivian Stern

PART III: CITIZENSHIP AND RIGHTS
CHAPTER 11: International human rights law applicable to prisoners - Camille Giffard
CHAPTER 12: Institutional perspectives and constraints - John Dawes
Words from the prisoners: Prison discipline
CHAPTER 13: Segregation - David Robinson
CHAPTER 1: Prisoners' rights to health and safety - Michael Levy
Words from the prisoners: Health care
CHAPTER 14: Crime victims and prisoners' rights - Sam Garkawe
Words from the prisoners: Preparing for release
CHAPTER 15: Prisoners and the right to vote - Melinda Ridley-Smith & Ronnit Redman
CHAPTER 16: Prisoners as citizens - David Brown

"One of the most poignant aspects of this collection is the contribution that prisoners themselves make... Collectively, [their] testimonies depict a deep-seated sense of feeling 'forgotten,' anonymous and utterly disenfranchised. They serve as a candid reminder that prisoners are living now, without proper access to basic medical care or family contact and live in physical conditions that fall short of any acceptable level of decency and care in a democratic society....
Practical measures that will immediately improve the recognition of human rights for prisoners are usefully discussed ...The book possesses a certain clarity and common-sense tone, its contributors approaching rights not from a philosophical but from a more concrete concern with 'rights as claims to certain minimum standards of treatment.'...
With a wide variety of contributors, the book represents a rich sourcebook of opinions on prisoners' rights.... it is an important publication that merits attention from anyone interested in the legal rules governing prisoners' rights, possible psychological effects of imprisonment and prisoner welfare generally."

-- Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol 4(3), July 2003

"This outstanding and comprehensive collection of essays on prisoners' rights which offers historical, international, jurisprudential, empirical and legal perspectives.... This is thoughtful but disturbing reading."

-- Reform, Spring 2002