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Hunger strikes have a long history in efforts to achieve social change but scholars have made few comparative, empirical, or theoretical contributions to understanding their dynamics and connections in the social movement and nonviolent action literature. We examine hunger strikes from 1906 to 2004 with a comparative perspective, elaborating on its use as a tactic of nonviolent change. Using data assembled from the New York Times, Keesing's Worldwide Online, and The Economist we analyze how, when, where, and why hunger strikes occur, and by whom they have been utilized to seek change. In general, findings reveal that hunger strikes over the last century have been widespread phenomena that are typically small, brief, and relatively successful tactics against the state. Several themes emerge regarding hunger strikes including their appeal to the powerless and emergence when few political opportunities exist, their significance for third-party mobilization, and the role of emotions in the protest dynamics. Taken together, the power struggle involving the hunger strike is an important example and extension of “political jiu-jitsu” as presented by Sharp (1973).

The assessment and management of prisoners on hunger strikes in a custodial setting is complex. There is limited clinical guidance available for psychiatrists to draw upon in such cases. The purpose of this paper is to develop a management algorithm through expert elicitation to inform the psychiatric care of prisoners on a hunger strike.

A Delphi method was used to elicit views from Irish forensic psychiatrists, a legal expert and an expert in ethics using a structured questionnaire. Themes were extracted from the results of the questionnaire to propose a management algorithm. A consensus was reached on management considerations.

Five consultant forensic psychiatrists, a legal expert and an expert on psychiatric ethics (n=7) consented to participation, with a subsequent response rate of 71.4 per cent. Consensus was achieved on a proposed management algorithm. Assessment for mental disorder, capacity to refuse food and motivation for food refusal are seen as key psychiatric tasks. The need to work closely with the prison general practitioner and the value of multidisciplinary working and legal advice are described. Relevant aspects of law included mental health, criminal law (insanity) and capacity legislation.

This study outlines a management algorithm for the psychiatric assessment and management of prisoners on a hunger strike, a subject about which there is limited guidance to date. Although written from an Irish perspective, this study outlines key considerations for psychiatrists in keeping with international guidance and therefore may be generalisable to other jurisdictions.

Following the military coup that toppled the government in September 1980, Turkish prisons, like the rest of the country, came under military control. Abhorrent levels of violence inflicted under military discipline became the source of horror stories. However, by early 1990s, official authorities had almost completely lost control of prisons to political prisoner organizations. This chapter analyzes how such a drastic change took place within a decade. Focusing on the ongoing struggles between political prisoner organizations and official actors over control of daily life, I argue that the resistance strategies developed by the political prisoners against the military disciplinary project in 1980s became the source of a prisoner-imposed disciplinary project in 1990s.

While the steep increases in rates of incarceration seen in the United States in the late twentieth century have begun to level out, one form of incarceration has seen more drastic reductions in rates of use in the 2010s: long-term solitary confinement. Across the United States, prisons that once isolated prisoners for decades at a time stand hauntingly empty. The solitary confinement reform movement provides an important lens for examining what happens when an entrenched punitive practice faces widespread and sustained criticism and reveals the multiple paradigms through which reform operates – through politics, litigation, or charismatic leadership.