Incarceration and human rights

Edited by Melissa McCarthy

Synopsis:
Each year, Oxford Amnesty Lectures invites speakers of international repute to consider various facets of a topic. Their lectures and invited responses form this book, whose contributors unite in original examination of the intersection between incarceration and human rights.

The book offers a diversity of voices: from the inside view of Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons to the words of a poet and former political prisoner; from an international policy overview of abuses of the mentally ill to a socio-economic reading of race and class in prisons. This range of approaches offers a uniquely rounded view of the topic, while each contributor's eminence in their field gives great depth of expertise. Contributors come from disciplines ranging from literature, sociology, campaigning, politics and more. This combination of voices and invited responses brings the reader into the dialogue, offering directions for further investigation as well.

Post-graduates and practitioners will want to keep up with the latest thoughts from acknowledged experts in their fields, while the reader with a general interest in any of the topics is offered both a clear examination of one area and thought provoking comparison with related fields. What do human rights concerns dictate about the practices that we tolerate in places of incarceration? And conversely, what can prisons, their hard facts and the ideas underpinning them, tell us about human rights? Anyone interested in these topics will benefit from the insights on offer.