Inside a Deteriorating Regime

Abstract

Based on primary research with women prisoners, conducted by the authors for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (the Commission), this chapter documents the deterioration of the regime in the Mourne House [women’s] unit of Maghaberry Prison from 2002 to 2004. As discussed in the previous chapter, Maghaberry was built as a high-security establishment. Following the closure of Long Kesh/Maze it held a complex mix of prisoners: male and female, children and adults, remand, sentenced, short- and long-term prisoners, politicallyaffiliated prisoners and immigration detainees. Women constituted a small minority and Mourne House was a satellite, self-contained unit outside the walls of the male prison but inside the walls of the Maghaberry estate — a prison within a prison. In July 2003 the Commission embarked on an investigation of the treatment of women in prison using its statutory powers under the Northern Ireland Act, 1998. The investigation’s remit was to examine ‘the extent to which the treatment of women and girls in custody in Maghaberry Prison is compliant with international human rights law and standards, and in particular with Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights’.