Social Rehabilitation and Torture Prevention Bodies

Abstract

Freedom from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment is a precondition for social rehabilitation in practical and symbolic ways. The prevention of torture is therefore of fundamental importance for the implementation of social rehabilitationist principles and policies. The remit of torture-prevention bodies, however, tends to focus narrowly on torture as defined under international law, meaning that wider questions of rehabiliation as instantiated in prison life, are not their central concern. This chapter explores the role of torture-prevention bodies in the area of social rehabilitation, noting the constraints imposed upon them by their legal foundations. It also shows that, despite these limitations, torture prevention bodies do find ways to draw attention to inadequate approaches to social rehabilitation. The chapter further engages with the growing interest in the concept of a “right to rehabilitation” and how this approach might be used in a “rights” rather than torture-focused approach to prison oversight.