Prisoner transfer and the importance of the ‘release effect’

Abstract

This article engages with the European debate on the position of foreign national prisoners in the context of the European Council Framework Decision that facilitates a prisoner’s transfer between the EU Member States (FD 909/2008). The study aims at capturing the experiences of 133 Romanian prisoners held in Italian and Spanish prisons, together with their intentions to engage or not with this new opportunity. One of the main findings of this research is that the explicit aim of the FD (social rehabilitation) is likely to be challenged by the intention of the foreign prisoners to use this FD to decrease the time spent behind bars. The article also puts forward a number of policy and practice recommendations that would improve the position of foreign prisoners in European prisons.

Keywords

Conditional release foreign prisoners Framework Decision release effect

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