Background to the Research

• The status and treatment of paramilitary prisoners has been a defining issue in the political conflict in NI. Yet, to date little academics research into prisons and prisoners has been carried out. This book seeks to address this neglected area by exploring the three overlapping themes of prisoners resistance, prison management and prisoner release.
  

Research Approach

• The author draws on interviews carried out with former Republican and Loyalist prisoners as well as with prison managers and staff.
  

Resistance

• Paramilitary prisoners in NI have engaged in four main strategies of resistance namely, escape; dirty protest/hunger strike; violence, and attitudes to and use of the law.
• Escapes were a consistent feature in NI prisons throughout the conflict. They gave legitimacy to paramilitary prisoners assertions of status as prisoners of war and opportunities to ridicule the authority of the state.
• Hunger strikes and dirty protests made the body into a site of struggle, for Republicans in particular, they offered a link to the history of political struggle and represented resistance through self-sacrifice and endurance.
• Violence within prisons represented to paramilitary prisoners a response to prison conditions and another theatre for the continuation of the war.
• Prisoners attitudes towards the law and its usage showed the willingness and ability of paramilitary prisoners to resist and to use the law in order to transform powerful social institutions.

Prison Management

• Prison management in NI from 1969-2000 can be defined as representing three models; reactive containment; criminalisation and managerialism.
• From 1969-1975 management of paramilitary prisoners can be described as a largely military-driven model; this was informed by colonial experiences in Cyprus, Kenya and Malaysia, and a reaction by the British government to the loss of control by the local Unionist government.
• From 1976-1981 the model shifted to one of defining terrorist acts as a law and order problem rather than a political one. This meant the end of internment and political status for paramilitary prisoners. Prisoners were forced to conform to the same rules and conditions as ordinary criminals.
• From 1981-2000 managerialism characterised the style of prison management. There was an acceptance that the prison system could not defeat political violence. Prison management became a technical question rather than one of ideology.

Prisoner Release and the Peace Process

• The 1994 IRA and Loyalist cease-fires were the result of discussions and negotiations within the respective movements and included the prisoners.
• The Irish government recognised the political importance of the prisoner issue to any peace process and freed prisoners within months of the 1994 cease-fire. It had released 36 of the 70 IRA prisoners by February 1996. The response of the British government was more cautious as they demanded evidence that the cease-fire would be permanent.
• The IRA cease-fire, which had broken down in February 1996, was restored in July 1996 and the British government appeared willing to include the release of prisoners in the negotiations.
• Prisoner release was viewed as a way of encouraging resistant organisations into the peace process, and as a lever to bring about concessions from paramilitaries with regard to decommissioning.

Conclusions

• Prisons in a society experiencing conflict are politically and ideologically charged sites and they remain potent sites where history happened.
• In the post-conflict area it will be necessary to discuss and chart the history of the conflict and sites such as the Maze prison have a key role to play in the public debate about what happened in the conflict and why.