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Northern Ireland: Prisons (1)

01 January 1991

Northern Ireland: Prisons
artdoc August=1991

The Committee for the Transfer of Irish Prisoners has launched
a new pamphlet explaining the social, legal and political
problems of getting Irish prisoners transferred from Britain to
the North of Ireland. `Double Sentence' shows how since 1973 the
British government has stood behind eight different reasons for
refusing transfer. This issue has also been taken up by the
Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights which is currently
considering a paper by lawyer Alana Jones on prisoners' rights
to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human
Rights. The paper concludes that `restrictions on the
availability of visits, compassionate home leave and transfer to
prisons nearer home, based solely on punitive grounds cannot be
justified' (see also Irish News, 18.4.91).
For many years Belfast's Victorian Crumlin Road prison, used
largely as a remand prison, has been the site of conflict (APRN
feature, 7.3.91). Recently, this has intensified as prisoners
have resisted a policy of enforced Loyalist/Republican
integration. In May it emerged that the Northern Ireland Office
is considering a major ¼15 million refurbishment programme to
bring the prison into line with the Woolf Report recommendation
to end slopping out within five years (Irish News, 21.5.91).
Another recent indication of the problems at the prison was the
four week hunger strike by Gerard Clarke which began when he was
placed in isolation following his refusal of an attempt by the
RUC to recruit him as an informer (Irish News, 18.4.91).

Statewatch no 3 July/August 1991