Contextualising the issue: Leadership in corrections

Modern correctional leaders are challenged by immediate country and system-specific dynamics and demands. Illustrated by Cavadino and Dignan (2006), for example, the political economy of countries, broadly categorised as neo-liberal, conservative corporatist, social democratic or oriental corporatist, is strongly related to the punitiveness of the penal culture and rates of imprisonment in each country. Also, few countries can ignore the evolving international norms that shape international, national, and system based regulatory and auditing practices within their bailiwicks. Recent international developments referred to by correctional leaders in this volume include the Nelson Mandela Rules (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/175 of 2015) a set of human rights guidelines for correctional administrators formerly known as the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Noted as a rapidly-developing pressure, too, is the cooperation between national and international assessors created in those countries where UN member states have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture along with the monitoring of prisoner rights by the Human Rights Committee overseeing the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. These norms and processes are not dissimilar to the move to design and regulate official visitor regimes within regional human rights and political frameworks such as those of the European Union.