Introduction

The work originates in a more general study of punishment and the use of imprisonment. As the prisons were reformed in the nineteenth century and their organisation was shaped more precisely to repress crime, a conundrum arose. While a regime of humiliation and hardship could be justified as a means of punishing and deterring and making an example of those who offended for selfish gain or other moral turpitude, what case could be made for treating conscionable offenders in this way?. A succession of politically motivated offenders have come into Irish and British prisons during the past 170 years for whom this was a cardinal issue. This volume deals with the conflict in Northern Ireland between the 1960s and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the prominence of prisoners in those events. It covers the three jurisdictions involved: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Britain.