The awful detention conditions in many African countries have made them the symbol of failing, unjust, and violent states. As a result, prison reform is now a primary concern for the transformation of the state, as well as a new site for international aid.Standards have been developed to guarantee inmates’ fundamental rights,and international donors and development organisations are now focusingon the prison sector. This chapter presentsthe new reform market which has thus emerged.*

Summary¶

• 5.1 - Defining prison ‘standards’, between human rights and security
• 5.2 - Reform markets and the circulation of models
• 5.3 - How to undertake reform on the ground: An expert’s account
• 5.4 - The role of NGOs and civil society
• 5.5 - The experience of reform from the perspective of a former prisoner: Pierre ClaverMbonimpa

How should health be consideredin prison? Analysing health-related issues in prison equates to understanding the inequalities and power issues that structure the experience of actors in detention. Examining health in prisons also requires a recognition of society’s responsibility towards inmates. While they have been convicted, an absence of care is not part of their sentence. It is important that we untangle the web of health-related issues in detention. In short, the power issues, the political issues, and the values that structure health care in prisons are explained through a number of implicated actors (inmates, healthcare professionals, national political figures, and agents).

Summary¶

• 4.1 - Health in prison: A public health target and an object of the social sciences
• 4.2 - The constraints on prison policies
• 4.3 - The delegation of health care
• 4.4 - The treatment of HIV at the MACA: A case study
• 4.5 - Supporting, influencing, mobilising. The ICRC and health in prison

Who is imprisoned? Why are people imprisoned? Can we speak of a failure of prison? All of these questions have been addressed by Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman in relation to Western societies and they make complete sense for African societies too. This week dives into their theories as toolkits to understand how prison is organised, how it is administrated, and how it is managed.

Summary¶

• 3.1 - What prison tells us
• 3.2 - Forms of work in prison
• 3.3 - Who governs prisons?
• 3.4 - Who is incarcerated?
• 3.5 - Prison, a total institution?

Prisons in Africa were not simply imported during the colonial era. The nature of confinement radically changed with colonial rule, when imprisonment became linked to the marginalisation and putting to work of African populations. Prison systems are not static, but they evolve as a function of changing political regimes (colonial then postcolonial, authoritarian, crisis-ridden, transitional…). This chapter discusses all of these configurations and changing logics over the course of these exchanges : history of the prison phenomenon in Africa.

Summary¶

• 2.1 - The origins of prisons in Africa
• 2.2 - Prisons and colonisation
• 2.3 - Prison and penal labour in the colonies
• 2.4 - Prison and authorities
• 2.5 - Prison and political transitions

Are prison systems in Africa specific? This chapter focuses on the prison trends on the African continent and compares them with global trends. Prisons in Africa are diverse, as well as the inmate situations. Who are they? Men? Women? Minors? Pre-trial detainees? Convicts?

Other forms of confinement can be detected on the continent. What differences can be seen between an Ebola Treatment Centre and a prison? In short, this week supports the reader towards the deconstruction of a number of common misconceptions about prisons in Africa.

Summary¶

• 1.1 - Prison, Africa, and the world
• 1.2 - The plurality of prisons in Africa
• 1.3 - Prisons and prisoners
• 1.4 - Informing, comparing, providing testimonies: Prison Insider
• 1.5 - Beyond penal confinement: Ebola Treatment Centres