The fundamental rights of prisoners face to the States’ international commitments and prison realities

Within a globalized society the carceral environment should tackle and respond adequately to the diversity of prisoners in terms of religion, culture, language, traditions and mores, habits, values and norms. The project shall be a good opportunity to offer the participants an almost overall view over the issues the administration of prisons is dealing with and to imagine new ways of managing them.

The programme will try to contextualize the impact of carceral culture over the prisoners and to develop new alternate strategies to resolve the overcrowding issues and the precarities of the conditions from prisons. It is important to find either new perspectives on how to define deviance or new alternatives to prisons, such as pecuniary sanctions.

As well amongst the objectives of the course are discussing about new perspective of assuring the resocialization of the prisoners by developing strategies for enhancing the level of education of prisoners.

It is obvious the inequality between prisoners concerning the education level, the economic status, the health issues and the standards and values towards the laws and norms in general. Consequently, there is a need for assessing and addressing the complexity of issues evolving from the penitentiary environment.

The students will hav the opportunity to better understand the structural deficiencies of the penitentiary system, the way the standards of prisoners’ rights recognised by the European Court are implemented, the vulnerabilities to which the prisoners are exposed, the need to identify alternatives to prison life in order to prevent, deter and sanction the deviance. As well the perspectives from which the issues are regarded is interdisciplinary – legal, sociological, psychological, civic.

Our project aims to be a participative, inclusive one, whereas we are proposing a strong collaboration between academics from the three university partners and other experts and practitioners from state offices and civil society on the subject regarding the fundamental rights of prisoners.

This BIP is a good opportunity to increase students’ mobility by improving intercultural exchanges, learning in a foreign language, discovering new traditions and customs, accommodating with new conditions of living and learning. It is also a space for debates between academics on the best strategies to solve the issues of the penitentiary system, but also between students who can bring an alternate perspective for the future approach of the deviance.

Main topics addressed

• Deprivation of liberty in national legal systems
• The specificities of the deprivation of liberty of different categories of prisoners
• Dignity in prison
• Effective respect for the rights and freedoms of prisoners
• What procedural protection for prisoners?
• Strategies for defending prisoners’ rights
• The rights of prisoners in the European Court of Human Rights’ case-law
• Developments and challenges in probation systems – an effective and sustainable alternative to imprisonment 
• The role of the Ombudsman in dealing with the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment 
• Social life and the prison environment
• Alternatives to prison?

The program aims to enhance the personal implications of the students to become enthusiastic, passionate and conscious about the innovative ways of approaching issues and about the real-world problems the stakeholders are confronting with.

Learning outcomes

The outcomes are designated to tackle from a transdisciplinary perspective – legal, sociological and psychological – the issues of the carceral system and the approaches in solving the complexity of cases – health issues, dignity issues, procedural issues, social issues. Consequently, all these outcomes are in line with the main and secondary HUB themes:

• better understand the structural deficiencies of the penitentiary system, the way the standards of prisoners’ rights recognised by the European Court are implemented, the vulnerabilities to which the prisoners are exposed, the need to identify alternatives to prison life in order to prevent, deter and sanction the deviance;
• discuss with experimented practitioners and to clarify their future oriented careers based on free and direct discussions with the stakeholders;
• identify the rights of the prisoners and establish a classification on different criteria;
• identify the obligations/commitments of the states;
• explain and tackle the structural issues and deficiencies of the penitentiary system;
• explore the alternatives for the deprivation of liberty;
• develop a critical thinking on the strategies and measures adopted by the states face to international obligations;
• develop communicative and competitional skills in a foreign language;
• enhance digital skills;
• foster meaningful intercultural experiences, the development of transversal skills, better understanding of a specific theme such as volunteering.

The project aims to prepare students for future social changes, developing a multidisciplinary approach of a given issue, critical thinking, collaboration spirit, innovative, civic, participative, inclusive ways of actions.