L'impact du discours des droits des détenus et des normes d'équité sur le tribunal disciplinaire carcéral

Over the past two decades, the prisoners rights movement and active judicial intervention in prison law have widely expanded in Canada. This movement has had a significant impact on the emergence of new norms of correctional justice. The recentCorrections and Conditional Release Act, (November 1992), inserts notions of human dignity; due process of law; and to a certain extent, the fundamental rights of prisoners. The aim of this essay is to measure the impact of prisoners rights discourse, and the legal obligation to act fairly towards prisoners, on the practices and quality of disciplinary decisions. Based on observations made at disciplinary hearings in various penitentiaries and interview data derived from the main actors, the author assesses how the ‘judiciarization’ of social relations and the ‘legalization’ of discipline in the prison have contributed to the birth of a more humanized prison and the promotion of human dignity for those people who are incarcerated.