Professor Mary Rogan

Professor Mary Rogan's research interests include prison law, human rights and imprisonment, and penal policymaking. Professor Rogan received a first class honours degree in Law from Trinity College Dublin before going on to obtain a BCL from the University of Oxford. Professor Rogan received her PhD at Trinity College Dublin for her work on the penal policymaking process. She was elected to Fellowship of Trinity College Dublin in 2021. She is a barrister with expertise in prison law, receiving the degree of Barrister-at-Law from the Honorable Society of King's Inns with distinction. She is also a Member of Lincoln's Inn and the Bar of England and Wales. Prof. Rogan holds an MA in Higher Education from Dublin Institute of Technology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics from Trinity College Dublin. In 2021, she became President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation/Fondation Internationale Pénale et Pénitentiaire, becoming the first person from Ireland and the first woman to hold this position. Since 2023, she has been its Secretary-General, also the first from Ireland. In 2022, she won the award for best civic engagement project at the Trinity Civic Engagement Awards. She was also nominated by the School of Law for best Research Supervisor in 2022. Professor Rogan holds two European Research Grants. She was a Starting Grant worth €1.5 million in 2015 for a project entitled 'Prisons: the rule of law, accountability and rights'. This work brings together, for the first time, the disciplines of public law and the sociology of punishment to examine inspection, oversight and accountability in prison systems in the United States and Europe. In 2024, she commenced work on a project funded by the ERC's Proof of Concept scheme entitled 'Prison Oversight: Improving Rights in Europe (POIRE)). This work provides support and training to people in prison and officials in responding to international human rights prison monitoring. Professor Rogan has also received funding from the European Commission and Irish Research Council for cross-jurisdictional projects on imprisonment, and pre-trial detention, and for work on law and social change. She has led research on bail and pre-trial detention in Ireland as part of research examining seven European Union countries, and a further project examining leadership in penal change in the United States and Europe. She has also provided research consultancy to the Council of Europe on projects concerning the inspection of prisons in Ukraine and North Macedonia. She is the former Book Review Editor for the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice and a current member of its Editorial Board and a member of the Research Advisory Group to the Howard League for Penal Reform. Professor Rogan teaches Penology at Trinity College Dublin and was the first coordinator of the Undergraduate Research Project Programme at the School of Law. She has pioneered community-based learning methods in legal education, having introduced the first community-based learning module partnering with nongovernmental organisations on penal policy, and supervised the first Employment-Based PhD student researching penal policy to work with a nongovernmental organisation. Professor Rogan is committed to using research to improve penal policy and the policymaking process. She chairs the Implementation and Oversight Group on reforms to penal policy, reporting to the Minister for Justice and Equality. She was appointed to the inaugural Research Advisory Group for the Department of Justice and Equality in July 2018. She sits on the Advisory Group to the Office of the Inspector of Prisons. She has also been a member of the Central Statistics Office's Expert Group on Crime Statistics. She is a former member of the Board of the Irish Association for the Social Integration of Offenders, the Victims' Rights Alliance, and is a former Chairperson of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

  accountability in prisons   human rights in prison   Prison   Prison Law   prison oversight   prison policy   prison policy in ireland   Prisoner health