ABSTRACT
We have a 'moral obligation' to treat our fellow beings, including offenders, humanely. In this chapter, democratic therapeutic community prisons are discussed as an example of humane imprisonment. This is legitimate insofar as the ideology underpinning the democratic TC (therapeutic community) approach can be seen to promote some basic aspects of humanity, such as the equal empowerment of individuals to register their view (usually in the democratic TC each member has one vote and all votes are of equal weight). A properly working democratic TC should be above debate about the human ity of its approach, as HMP Grendon has been seen to be (Genders and Player, 2004).
