Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The world of prisons
- 3 Prisons of the world
- 4 International Centre for Prison Studies
- 5 Women: the forgotten minority
- 6 The legacy of the Gulag
- 7 European Committee for the Prevention of Torture
- 8 Regional contrasts: Cambodia and Japan
- 9 Latin America: the iron fist or the New Model?
- 10 Barbados and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- 11 Sub-Saharan Africa: an expensive colonial legacy
- 12 The Jericho Monitoring Mission
- 13 Towards ‘a better way’
- Notes
- References
- Index
7 - European Committee for the Prevention of Torture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The world of prisons
- 3 Prisons of the world
- 4 International Centre for Prison Studies
- 5 Women: the forgotten minority
- 6 The legacy of the Gulag
- 7 European Committee for the Prevention of Torture
- 8 Regional contrasts: Cambodia and Japan
- 9 Latin America: the iron fist or the New Model?
- 10 Barbados and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
- 11 Sub-Saharan Africa: an expensive colonial legacy
- 12 The Jericho Monitoring Mission
- 13 Towards ‘a better way’
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The United Kingdom
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) was established in 1989 under the European Convention of the same name. It is a mechanism designed to prevent ill-reatment from occurring and it implements its remit by carrying out regular inspections of all places where people are detained in countries which have ratified the European Convention. The background to the enactment of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is analysed in detail in Evans and Morgan (1998).
The CPT carried out its first round of inspections in 1990, visiting Austria, Malta, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Denmark. Its visit to the United Kingdom took place in the summer of that year and it had a heavyweight membership. Led by the President of the CPT, a distinguished Italian jurist, it included the two vice presidents, a Danish medical doctor and a Swiss psychiatrist, as well as a Norwegian doctor and an Austrian lawyer. Its visit came in the aftermath of the April riot at Strangeways Prison while Lord Justice Woolf was carrying out his subsequent inquiry and the team had a meeting with Woolf. The Committee submitted its report to the UK government in March 1991, one month after the Woolf Report had been submitted to the UK Parliament:
Report on the visit of the CPT to the United Kingdom in 1990:
The CPT’s delegation found that the conditions of detention in the three male local prisons visited [Wandsworth, Brixton and Leeds] were very poor. In each of the three prisons there was a pernicious combination of overcrowding, inadequate regime activities, lack of integral sanitation and poor hygiene. In short, the overall environment in which the prisoners had to lead their lives amounted, in the CPT’s opinion, to inhuman and degrading treatment. (Council of Europe, 1991a)
Response of the UK Government to the CPT Report:
It is difficult to judge when inadequate facilities and an unpleasant environment can be said to constitute ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Prisons of the World , pp. 78 - 93Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021