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This thesis describes and analyses the rights of prisoners to have contact with the world outside the place where they are held. It reviews international human rights and humanitarian law sources relevant to secrecy of detention and isolation of prisoners from the outside world. The thesis examines the issues of incommunicado detention and secret detention, including through the lenses of the right to liberty, the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the right to humane treatment and respect for human dignity, and the prohibition of enforced disappearance. It also considers the wider range of human rights to which prisoners remain entitled subject to the inherent limitations of their situation, as possible sources of contact with the outside world: access to legal counsel, non- interference with family life, private life, and correspondence, freedom of religion, expression and association, the right to vote, and the right to health. Historical and theoretical context is provided by describing the purposes, practices and philosophies of imprisonment across history in the criminal justice, armed conflict, and administrative detention settings, with a particular focus on secrecy and isolation. The scope and interplay of the applicable legal frameworks is also discussed, considering the role of territoriality and the relationship between human rights and humanitarian law in relation to each of the issues addressed in the thesis. The thesis proposes a framework for answering legal questions about prisoners' rights of contact with the outside world and their restriction, identifying a series of cross-cutting factors that could inform an integrated approach. It concludes with possible explanations for the seemingly paradoxical trend towards recognition of ever-greater rights of prisoner contact with the outside world, when isolation and separation from society is the very objective for which deprivation of liberty is most often deployed.

Adolescent offenders in custody are known to have a high prevalence of mental health problems yet recent reports suggest that these needs often still go unrecognised. This study set out to track help-seeking behaviours, attitudes to mental health issues and access to mental health services by adolescent boys following admission to custody. The sample comprised 115 boys aged 15 to 18 years who had been admitted to a Young Offender Institution. Mental health needs were assessed using standardised tools; attitudes to services and help-seeking intentions were assessed using a questionnaire developed specifically for the study.

This study examines prison education within the Jamaican context with a view to uncovering, identifying and analysing key pedagogic techniques used by prison educators. Foucault was used as a theoretical framework for analysing the prison's role in society and the role of education in the prison context in order to focus on prison pedagogies.

This study attempts to make the case for prison education. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of theories of punishment were produced. Some of these, namely, those of Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Rusche and Kirchheimer and Norbert Elias are reviewed in this study. It is argued that these theories should lead one to conclude that a sound educational programme is indispensable if we want to realise the benefits claimed on behalf of imprisonment or avoid the ills attributed to it. The initial, rudimentary idea of an education for prisoners goes back to the end of the eighteenth century. A cursory historical review is included to highlight the lack of substantial development in prison education. In order for prison teachers and educators to know what they are really about in their work, they need to know and understand their students, the prisoners, and the context in which they have to teach, the prison. Drawing on a spectrum of scholarship and research this study offers an analysis of these two aspects which, one hopes, will shed some light on why prison fails, with some exceptions, to reform prisoners. The last section reviewsthe content of education `programmes' provided in prisons in the United Kingdom and North America during the last two centuries and makes proposals concerning the kind of regime that is needed to ensure a greater measure of success and the pedagogical approach that fits today's world.

Individuals with a diagnosis of personality disorder who are considered a risk to others are a current concern for healthcare providers, the government and society. Service provision for this group has recently increased, making it especially important to learn about the needs of staff who care for these demanding and complex individuals. Little research has been done in this area to date. The theoretical and empirical literature relevant to a consideration of the topic is reviewed. An in-depth interview study with staff working in a unit for offenders with a diagnosis of personality disorder (Unit Z) is presented. Its purpose was to develop understanding of the needs of staff who work with individuals with a diagnosis of personality disorder who are judged to be a risk to others. An eventual aim was to inform an intervention with staff, which could then be evaluated. Twelve in-depth interviews were carried out with multi-disciplinary staff from Unit Z. These were analysed according to the grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Charmaz, 2003). An interview with a community practitioner from a different service was carried out to enhance thinking about the effects of setting. Four Unit Z patients were randomly selected to participate in a group discussion to test initial findings and integrate their perspectives into the study. Main categories were generated from analysis of the data, and a core category was identified entitled `Risk of Isolation'. Further categories were divided into `Areas of Concern' and `Key Contextual Factors' and a model was developed. This is discussed in relation to the existing literature. Implications for an understanding of the needs of staff who care for this patient group are outlined. Recommendations include: the provision of individual and group supervision to help staff reflect on the personal impact of the work, and the way in which staff relationships are affected by contact with the patient group; a focus by service heads on recruiting staff who are able to offer stability and understanding to patients and on retaining experienced workers; and the development of links with agencies for onward referral. Suggestions are made for future research and practice, with particular reference to the profession of clinical psychology. The importance of investigating the influence of changes in practice on long-term therapeutic outcome is emphasized.

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This thesis explores the interconnections between masculinity, health and prison. It contests reductionist, individualist and biomedical approaches to health care management in prisons and challenges gender-blindness within criminology and social science where masculinities have been overlooked as key factors of prison culture and organisation. The research set out to explore how masculinities manifest at institutional, social and cultural levels in prison as key determinants of health. The study was conducted in an enhanced wing of an adult male training prison in Southern England. A reflexive ethnographic approach was used, comprising sustained (non-participant)observation, focus group interviewing, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with thirty-five inmates and four prison officers. The research revealed how prison masculinities were produced and performed by inmates and prison staff, and through the discourses and practices of the prison regime. They were manifested at social and organisational levels as key determinants of health as 'deprivations' associated with imprisonment and as 'importation factors' reflecting inmates pre-prison health status. Values of the institution and those of inmates and staff combined to create a pervasively 'masculine' atmosphere and culture, which adversely affected the physical and mental health of many prisoners. This thesis recommends that health policy for prisons is developed and organised with consideration to issues of gender and power. The masculine ideology that underpinned the organisational and social fabric of the prison in this study was evident in the attitudes and behaviours of inmates and staff and in the 'progressive regime' advocated by the Prison Service. This research shows that a broad, holistic and 'gendered' view of prison health can provide alternative insight into men's health in prisons, and therefore offer a positive and productive way forward for future prison health policy, in line with the World Health Organisation's Healthy Prisons philosophy.