Not “proper” foreign national prisoners: Irish ex-prisoner reflections on imprisonment in England and Wales
| Published date | 01 March 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02645505221124766 |
| Author | Paul Gavin |
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Not “proper”foreign
national prisoners: Irish
ex-prisoner reflections
on imprisonment in
England and Wales
Paul Gavin
University of West England, UK
Abstract
Irish prisoners are one of the oldest minority groups and one of the most represented
foreign national groups in the prison system, yet little is known about their experiences
of imprisonment in England and Wales. This article presents findings from 29 semi-
structured interviews with Irish ex-prisoners who were asked to reflect on their time in
prison in England and Wales. It utilises Ugelvik and Damsa’sfindings on foreign
national prisoner experiences in Norway as related to discrimination, long-distance
relationships, and deportability as a point of analysis. This paper shows that Irish pris-
oners suffer the pains of discrimination through racism, bullying, and discrimination
from prisoners and prison officers, and there are concerns over mistreatment by
prison officers who are ex-military. There are also difficulties associated with family
contact. As Irish prisoners are not subject to deportation, except in the most excep-
tional circumstances, and since there is no language barrier, this paper suggests
that Irish prisoners might not seen as “proper”foreign nationals in the prison system.
This may result in Irish prisoners being somewhat invisible in the prison system in
England and Wales and in some cases having their nationality and national identity
denied.
Keywords
ethnicity, identity, prisoners, offender management, discrimination
Corresponding Author:
Paul Gavin, Department of Social Sciences, University of West England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour
Lane, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK.
Email: paul2.gavin@uwe.ac.uk
Article The Journal of Communit
y
and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2024, Vol. 71(1) 26–46
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02645505221124766
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
Introduction
Irish prisoners are one of the oldest and most represented foreign national prisoner
(FNP) groups within the prison system in England and Wales, yet they are a very
under-researched proportion of the prisoner population (Gavin, 2014). Most of
the research on Irish prisoners in England and Wales is dominated by that on
Irish Travellers (Gavin, 2019; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP),
2020; MacGabhann, 2011, 2013) or historical accounts of Irish Republican pris-
oners (O’Donnell, 2012, 2015). FNPs were once referred to as the forgotten prison-
ers in England and Wales (Cheney, 1993; Prison Reform Trust, 2004) and Irish
prisoners were described as the invisible minority (Murphy, 1994). Like all prison-
ers, Irish prisoners are subject to a series of deprivations, or more colloquially,
pains, which are associated specifically with prison life (Sykes, 1958). Crewe
(2011: 509) has noted that these pains can be divided, both conceptually and his-
torically, “into those deriving from the inherent features of incarceration, those result-
ing from deliberate abuses and derelictions of duty, and those that are
consequences of systemic policies and institutional practices.”
The findings in this paper are taken from the author’s doctoral research (Gavin,
2017). Publications which arose from this have found that the official number of
Irish prisoners in England and Wales is generally inaccurate as they are under-
counted. Irish prisoners tend to suffer from depression, paranoia, isolation, and
fear. Some also struggle with resettlement when they return to Ireland. It also
found that Irish Travellers experience racism, discrimination and bullying from pris-
oners and prison staff (Gavin, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2020). This paper builds on the
research undertaken by the author and others (Borland et al., 1995; Flood, 2007;
Murphy, 1994) on Irish prisoners in England and Wales. It begins by reviewing the
literature on FNPs and how the pains of imprisonment impact upon this group. It con-
siders the literature on Irish prisoners in England and Wales before discussing the
methodology. The findings are presented and analysed through the lens of
Ugelvik and Damsa’s (2018) findings on the pains of “crimmigration imprisonment”
in a Norwegian prison. This paper shows that Irish prisoners share some similar
experiences to other FNPs, such as racism, discrimination, and separation from
family. They do not, however, share uncertainty over their deportation status or
suffer from a language barrier. It is argued that this has rendered them as a some-
what invisible group and not being viewed as “proper”FNPs in the prison
system, in a similar fashion to Irish migrants in Britain not being seen as “proper”
migrants (Hickman and Ryan, 2020).
The pains of being a foreign national prisoner
Sykes’(1958) deprivations of imprisonment are the deprivation of liberty; goods
and services; heterosexual relationships; autonomy; and security. It has been
suggested that these pains are an “innate, universal characteristic of imprison-
ment”(Shammas, 2017: 2) and the pains of imprisonment are best understood
through categories of depth, weight, tightness, and breadth (Crewe, 2011).
Gavin 27
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