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Zusatztext This in an outstanding ... contribution to the prisons literature. It serves as an important piece of history, but more important, as a fully sociological and original analysis of strategies of coping, management, control and resistance. Informationen zum Autor Kieran McEvoy is a Reader in law at The Queen's University, Belfast Klappentext This book offers a unique analysis of paramilitary imprisonment in Northern Ireland. The central focus of the book is the struggle between inmates and the state concerning the prisoners' assertion of their status as political prisoners. Drawing upon interviews with former Republican and Loyalist prisoners as well as prison managers and staff, this book locates that experience within the broader theoretical literature on imprisonment. Zusammenfassung This book offers a unique analysis of paramilitary imprisonment in Northern Ireland. The central focus of the book is the struggle between inmates and the state concerning the prisoners' assertion of their status as political prisoners. Drawing upon interviews with former Republican and Loyalist prisoners as well as prison managers and staff, this book locates that experience within the broader theoretical literature on imprisonment. Four forms of prison resistance are examined by which prisoners asserted their political status. Dirty protest and hunger strike are characterised as resistance through self sacrifice. Violence, destruction and intimidation are examined as prison resistance becoming an extension of armed struggle. Escape is analysed as a form of resistance through ridicule. And finally law is considered as instrumental resistance and a dialogical process with a range of audiences. The book then considers a range of prison management adopted by the prison authorities. `Reactive Containment' is described as a military-led model of management which incapacitated the terrorist `enemy' but acknowledged the political character of the inmates. `Criminalization' is viewed as a strategy designed to deny any practical or symbolic acceptance of the political motivation of prisoners. `Managerialism', it is argued, encompasses a series of scientific discourses to rationalise conflicting interactions with prisoners, from pragmatic accommodations to a dogged determination to prevent further recognition of de facto political status. The book concludes with an analysis of the early release of paramilitary prisoners and the conflict resolution process and some reflections on political prisons as spaces both during and after a political conflict. Inhaltsverzeichnis Background and Definitions 1: Introduction I. Prisoner Resistance 2: Coping, Resistance, and Political Imprisonment 3: Escape: Resistance as Ridicule 4: Hunger Strike and Dirty Protest: Resistance as Self-Sacrifice 5: Resistance and Violence: Power, Intimidation and the Control of Space 6: Resistance and Law: Prisons, and the Poltical Struggle II. Prison Management 7: Prison Management and Prison Staff 8: Reactive Containment 1969-1975 9: Criminalization 1976-1981 10: Managerialism 1981-2000 III. The Early Release of Prisoners 11: Prisoner Release, the Peace process, and the Political Character of the Conflict Epilogue Political Prisons and the Construction of Memory Appendix 1. Key Prison Events Appendix 2. Notes on the Research Process ...
