Encouraging the Development of Prisoner Re-Integration in Irish Penal Policy: Financing Social Re-Integration Alternatives

• Author: Stephen Kirwan
• Position: LLB (Dub), PhD (candidate) (TCD)
• Pages: 37-58

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ENCOURAGING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRISONER RE-INTEGRATION IN

IRISH PENAL POLICY: FINANCING SOCIAL RE-INTEGRATION

ALTERNATIVES

Stephen Kirwan*

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to highlight and discuss the gradual emergence of a culture of social

re-integra tion in Irish penal policy. The first section of this article seeks to provide a

descriptive ana lysis of the multi-faceted appr oach to prisoner re-integration a s it appears in

a contemporary Ir ish context. It is suggested here that in order to fully understand the ideal

of re-integration in a contemporary context it must be presented as an amorphous ideal

which is pursued by the key stakeholders of penal policy in an incomplete and often

contradictory fashion. This article will attempt to outline the three specific approaches to re-

integration which can be seen to exist in a contemporary Irish context, while briefly

attempting to outline the contemporary acceptance of a limited fourth approach, namely that

of social re-integration, by legislators and community organisa tions.

A INTRODUCTION

The aim of this article is to highlight and discuss the gradual emergence of a culture of social

re-integration in Irish penal policy. The first section of this article seeks to provide a

descriptive analysis of the multi-faceted approach to prisoner re-integration as it appears in a

contemporary Irish context.

1 It is suggested here that in order to fully understand the ideal of

re-integration in a contemporary context it must be presented as an amorphous ideal which is

pursued by the key stakeholders of penal policy in an incomplete and often contradictory

fashion. Methodologically this draws on the approach taken by David Garland in his seminal

text The Culture of Control.2 Throughout the text Garland is careful not to argue that the

changes he sees in the penal policy of the late 20th century signals the end of one approach to

penal policy or the blossoming of another.3 Instead, he seeks to argue that contemporary

approach to penal punishment in Western society represents a ‘reconfigured complex of

interlocking structures and strategies that are themselves composed of old and new elements,

* LLB (Dub), PhD (candidate) (TCD).

1 Graham Burchell, ‘Governing the System of Natural Liberty’ in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Pe ter

Miller (eds), The Fouca ult Effect: Studies in Govermentality (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf 1991).

2 David Garland, The Culture of Control: Cr ime and Social Ord er in a Contemporar y Society (OUP 2001).

3 Evan Ryan, ‘A Critical Analysis of the Many Manifestations of the Criminal Justice Syste m and the Principles

that Underlie the Current Irish System’ (2008) 7 COLR 112.

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the old revised and re-orientated by a new operational context.’

4 This article will attempt to

outline the three specific approaches to re-integration which can be seen to exist in a

contemporary Irish context, while briefly attempting to outline the contemporary acceptance

of a limited fourth approach, namely that of social re-integration, by legislators and

community organisations.

Subsequent to this discussion the second part of the article attempts to identify a number of

potential barriers which appear to prevent a holistic and systematic financing of social re-

integration alternatives. On this basis it is seeks to offer a suggestion as to how such

innovative social alternatives can be financed through the ideal of Social Impact Bonds.

B UNIVERSALISM: RE-INTEGRATION THROUGH INCARCERATION

The idea of re-integration through incarceration posits the belief that offenders can

successfully be re-integrated into society after a period of punishment. This is premised on

the belief that the content and design of incarceration could allow for integration as all

prisoners could equally be normalised by it. The work of Michele Foucault, in particular, has

been instrumental in highlighting the development of re-integration through incarceration.

In his seminal text entitled Discipline and Punish, 5 Foucault relies on the historical

transformation of the prison to demonstrate how individuals become subjected, used, and

ultimately re-integrated into society through imprisonment. In this vein the text is opened

with the public spectacle of a man condemned to torture on the basis of a sovereign direction

given by the monarch of the ancient régime.6 Foucault proposes that such public torture had a

juridico-political function in that it concerned right of the absolute sovereign to use law as a

manifestation of power and as a form of acceptability.7 However in emphasising the time

period between the late 1700s and mid-1800s, a period characterised elsewhere roughly

emergence of the industrial-capitalist society,8 Foucault notes the disappearance of the body

as the major target of penal repression.9 Instead of relying solely on the spectacle of public

4 Garland (n 2) 23.

5 Michel Foucault, Discipline and P unish: The Birth of the Prison (New York, Random House 1977) 156.

6 ibid 165.

7 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York, Random House1977) 47-57.

8 Karl Marx, Capita l Volume I (New York, Knof Doubleday 1977) ch 31.

9 Focault (n 5).