Human rights in prisons: comparing institutional encounters in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and the Philippines

Like many prisons around the world, those in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and the Philippines are subject to the scrutiny and intervention of rights-based non-governmental organisations. This book compares encounters between prisons and NGOs drawing particular attention to the variation in styles of intervention. It ultimately shows how prisons act on NGOs as much as NGOs act on prisons. The authors call for a re-alignment of rights-based approaches to prison reform more finely and pragmatically attuned to the reality of interdependent relations between prisons and NGOs. Human Rights in Prisons advances understandings of institutional agency by casting a much needed empirical light on prisons, relations between staff and prisoners, and the inexorable grind of prison life.