Constructing Citizenship: Making Room for Prisoners' Rights

Abstract

This article examines the impact of prisoners' rights in the UK and the US in relation to the shift in prisoners' status from a state of social and civil death towards a recognition of their citizenship that is grounded in social inclusion. It argues that the concept of citizenship can be reconstructed to include prisoners and that a rights‐based approach is crucial in moving the prisoner from the status of a non‐person, who is socially dead, towards citizenship. Only such a reconstruction will lead to improvements in the treatment of prisoners and to the raising of standards in prison; alternative methods, including new managerialist strategies, have failed to achieve significant improvements.

Keywords:

• civil death
• social inclusion
• citizenship
• prisoners' rights
• social exclusion
• social death