Detention policies are routinely designed, implemented, and evaluated by people who have never experienced detention. People in detention are consulted when institutions need information: inspectors interview them, researchers collect their testimonies, and prison administrations receive their complaints. Yet they are far less often invited to help define the problems, design the solutions, or assess whether reforms have worked. Borrowing an insight from the disability rights movement, whose call for “nothing about us without us” expresses the principle of meaningful participation in decisions affecting them, detention policy should move from speaking about detained people to working with them. This does not mean transferring to prisoners the State’s responsibility to manage places of detention, nor assigning them disciplinary or coercive powers. It means recognising that lived experience is a form of knowledge.

From Consultation to Participation

International standards already contain elements of this participatory approach. Rule 50 of the European Prison Rules provides that prisoners should be allowed to discuss general conditions of imprisonment and are encouraged to communicate with prison authorities. The Nelson Mandela Rules draw an equally important boundary: prisoners must not be employed in a disciplinary capacity, although properly functioning systems of prisoner self-government are not prohibited. This distinction is important: participation should give detainees a voice in matters affecting their lives, without placing them in positions of authority over other detainees or transferring to them functions that remain the responsibility of the State. Together, these principles point towards participation without delegation of the State’s coercive authority.

Consultation asks people what they think. Participation gives them a defined opportunity to influence what happens next. The difference is not semantic. A consultation may end when information has been collected; meaningful participation requires feedback, a record of how views were considered, and an explanation when they were not followed. It does not give participants a veto, but it does create institutional accountability for listening.

Participation Across the Detention Cycle

The most immediate application concerns daily conditions of detention. People living in an institution know how formal rules operate in practice: when water is actually available, who can reach healthcare, how food is distributed, where intimidation occurs, and which complaint channels are trusted. Representative prisoner councils, confidential surveys, and issue-specific working groups can reveal problems that administrative data or short visits may miss. They can also help test practical solutions before scarce resources are committed.

Participation is equally important for rehabilitation and social reintegration. Reintegration programmes are often designed around the services available within the prison or criminal justice system, rather than starting from the practical obstacles people are likely to encounter after release.  Current and former prisoners can identify gaps in access to identity documents, housing, work, health care, family support and continuity of treatment. Their contribution can help shift reintegration from a standard package delivered before release to a pathway that reflects the realities encountered afterwards. The United Nations guidance on preventing recidivism and supporting social reintegration already emphasises the importance of community-based support; people who have navigated release should be recognised as part of the expertise needed to design it.

The same logic applies to alternatives to detention. A measure may appear proportionate on paper while being impossible to comply with in practice. Reporting obligations, travel restrictions, curfews or electronic monitoring may conflict with precarious work, care responsibilities, disability, or distance from public services. The Tokyo Rules require non-custodial measures to respect the rights of the person concerned and encourage community participation. Involving people who have experienced such measures can help determine whether an alternative genuinely reduces deprivation or merely relocates it outside prison walls.

Participation in Preventive Monitoring

The case for participation is especially strong under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). The OPCAT gives preventive bodies unrestricted access to information and the opportunity to conduct private interviews with persons deprived of their liberty. These interviews are indispensable. But they usually position detainees as sources from whom monitors obtain information, rather than as partners who can also improve the questions asked, the risks prioritised and the recommendations followed up.

National Preventive Mechanisms could involve people with lived experience at several stages without compromising their independence. Former detainees and representative organisations could advise on thematic priorities, review the accessibility of interview methods and complaint procedures, and identify issues that outsiders may overlook. After visits, safe and confidential forms of engagement could help assess whether recommendations have changed daily reality. In selected contexts, people with lived experience could also contribute as trained external experts. Practice in mental-health monitoring already shows the value of including monitors with lived experience, who may recognise hidden barriers and make it easier for detainees to discuss sensitive concerns.

This would not transform detainees into inspectors of the institutions holding them. Nor should participation replace private interviews, independent professional judgment, or confidential monitoring. Its purpose is to complement them by ensuring that preventive methodologies are informed not only by legal and professional expertise, but also by knowledge generated through detention itself.

Making Participation Safe and Meaningful

Participation in closed institutions carries obvious risks. Prisoners may be selected by the administration because they are considered cooperative, while women, foreign nationals, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people and those in high-security or segregated regimes remain unheard. Participants may face pressure from staff or other prisoners, and consultation fatigue may deepen mistrust when nothing changes. A visible role can also expose individuals to retaliation.

For these reasons, participation must be voluntary, informed, accessible and representative. It should use multiple channels rather than rely on a single prisoner representative. Furthermore, confidential options and safeguards against reprisals are essential. Participants should know the purpose and limits of the process, receive feedback on its outcomes, and be able to withdraw. Former detainees who contribute sustained expertise should be remunerated on the same basis as other experts. Above all, institutions should be able to show what changed as a result of participation.

The boundary with informal prison governance must also remain clear. Participation concerns voice, knowledge and influence; it must not entail control over discipline, access to rights, allocation of essential services, or the use of force. The State remains fully responsible for prison management and for protecting everyone in its custody.

Conclusion

Prevention depends on seeing risks before they become violations. People who live through detention often see those risks first, yet preventive systems tend to involve them only after experts have decided what to examine. Moving from testimony to participation would not solve every failure of detention policy, and it would not remove the need for independent oversight, adequate resources or State accountability. It would, however, improve the quality of each.

“Nothing about detention without detainees” should therefore be understood not as a slogan of institutional self-government, but as a principle of better prevention: those most affected by detention should have safe and meaningful ways to shape the policies, programmes and monitoring methods intended to protect their dignity.