The path to human rights in Romania: Emergent voice(s) of legal mobilization in prisons

Starting from the premise that a better understanding of the legal efforts to implement European norms regarding human rights in prisons cannot overlook prisoners’ subjective experiences of rights, this article addresses the issue of prisoners’ complaints in Romania. Using survey data on a sample of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dâmboeanu, Cristina (Author)
Contributors: Pricopie, Valentina ; Thiemann, Alina
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
In: European journal of criminology
Year: 2021, Volume: 18, Issue: 1, Pages: 120-139
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:Starting from the premise that a better understanding of the legal efforts to implement European norms regarding human rights in prisons cannot overlook prisoners’ subjective experiences of rights, this article addresses the issue of prisoners’ complaints in Romania. Using survey data on a sample of 557 prisoners, it first seeks to examine how often prisoners lodge formal complaints and on what grounds, and how their complaints are framed. Second, employing models drawn from the legal mobilization literature, it tries to identify which are the individual and institutional determinants of prisoners’ complaints. Third, based on a unique qualitative (content) analysis of the comments prisoners made at the end of the survey, the article examines how prisoners articulate their discourse on rights’ claims. The article concludes by pointing to the relevance of institutional status variables as determinants of prisoners’ complaints and to the development of prisoners’ discourse embracing legal and procedural languages.
ISSN:1741-2609
DOI:10.1177/1477370820966575