This article examines the development of international human rights standards and oversight mechanisms directed at addressing the negative effects of imprisonment. We identify this as the rules-based prison-regulation project, widely endorsed by international organizations and legal scholars. However, with a focus on the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, we argue that this project has inherent limitations, as it is based on (a) a reductive understanding of carceral harms and (b) a rule-centric ontology of prisons. By challenging these foundations, we explore whether the project exemplifies “cruel optimism” (Berlant, 2011), where the pursuit of improved prison regulation could inadvertently hinder societal flourishing. We argue that the continuous search for new and better prison standards may perpetuate rather than alleviate the problems associated with imprisonment unless accompanied by explicit strategies for countering prison growth and dramatically reducing prisoner numbers, for building the democratic power of prisoners and communities targeted by imprisonment, and continual linkages between prison conditions and the wider political-economic institution of imprisonment. We conclude that engaging with prisons as sites of relational power in practice must underlie any quest to reduce the harms of imprisonment.

中文翻译：

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国际监狱监管的残酷乐观：监狱本体论和监禁危害

本文探讨了旨在解决监禁负面影响的国际人权标准和监督机制的发展情况。我们将此称为基于规则的监狱监管项目，得到国际组织和法律学者的广泛认可。然而，以《联合国囚犯待遇最低限度标准规则》为重点，我们认为该项目具有固有的局限性，因为它基于 (a) 对监禁伤害的还原性理解和 (b) 以规则为中心的本体论监狱。通过挑战这些基础，我们探讨该项目是否体现了“残酷的乐观主义”（Berlant，2011），即追求改善监狱监管可能会无意中阻碍社会繁荣。我们认为，不断寻求新的、更好的监狱标准可能会延续而不是缓解与监禁相关的问题，除非同时制定明确的战略来遏制监狱增长并大幅减少囚犯人数，为囚犯和监禁目标社区建立民主权力，监狱条件与更广泛的政治经济监禁制度之间的持续联系。我们的结论是，将监狱作为实践中的关系权力必须成为减少监禁危害的任何努力的基础。