Prison abolition: international human rights law perspectives

The article examines the compatibility of the international human rights regime with penal abolition as a body of critical social thought as well as a social movement seeking the abolition of prisons. The international human rights regime recognises and legitimates the existence of penitentiary systems while at the same time being noticeably active in areas related to prisoners’ rights and the scrutiny of conditions of detention. This allows in some, admittedly limited, circumstances to pursue and advance alternative frameworks that seek to reduce reliance on the prison system. The increased scrutiny and questioning of the use and legitimacy of detention, even for serious criminal behaviour, provide the normative premises for the abolition of prisons as the dominant form of punishment. However, a human rights approach to imprisonment is not enough from a penal abolitionist standpoint, unless grounded in and supported by a wider social justice programme tackling structural inequalities. In this respect, it is submitted that the multi-facetted international human rights regime provides some legal and normative tools. The IHR regime’s equality dimension and its social, economic, and cultural rights tradition, may contribute to a broad view of justice beyond the narrow and punitive confines of the criminal justice system.