Changing the prison system: the role of information

Carole Berrih. I have been carrying out research on the prison environment for NGOs and different United Nations agencies for more than 10 years. In some cases, I analyse the prison situation before developing a project proposal. In other cases, I evaluate actions that have already been taken in order to improve detention conditions. The goal is to see how much these actions contributed to the improvement. These projects can take various shapes, including improving access to treatment, implementing social and familial reintegration activities, training prison guards or nursing staff, providing legal assistance and raising awareness of prisoners’ rights.

I recently intervened in a prison where a project had been completed to support healthcare. While talking to the children in this prison, I realised that the majority of the activities meant to raise awareness about illnesses in the prison environment had occurred outside of their block. Because of the risk of escape, only children who did not represent security risks had been allowed to participate. I therefore recommended a revision of the method of operation: to complete activities by block to ensure that no child is excluded.

In another prison, where a project had been led to prepare inmates for reintegration, the teams and the inmates informed me that the wardens frequently cancelled activities. After discussion, it turned out that the wardens had never been included in the formation or the execution of the project. The wardens thought that the inmates were getting too much attention. I then suggested a reinforcement of the connection between the project and the staff to create a new setting for exchanges and to match the staff to certain activities. The objective behind all of these missions is the same: to inform and guide the activities of organisations to improve the quality of actions in the prison environment.

CB. In some countries, it is not as difficult to access the prisons as one might think. The “régisseurs”¹ are often facing overpopulation that is not their fault, which leads to very bad detention conditions and exacerbates issues. This means that they are rather in favour of outside missions and are more willing to disclose their needs and potentially work in partnership to improve the conditions in their prisons.

I frequently talk directly with prison staff and with inmates, without surveillance or restraints. This makes loads of information accessible to me: inmate numbers by category and by offence, size and state of the cells, number of inmates per cell, budget per prison dedicated to food and health, prevalence of illnesses, number and types of deaths, number of individuals in disciplinary cells, amount that one might pay to be assigned a certain cell or obtain access to services, quantity of water and food available per person, violence, etc. This brings extremely problematic situations to my attention.

Some prisons have overpopulation rates of more than 400%, with largely insufficient sanitary facilities.

In a prison I worked in in the Sahel, there was a single working toilet for more than 230 inmates. In another prison, in Chad, where I conducted a study in 2016, 1,720 individuals were being held in a prison intended for 400: more than 70 individuals were housed in the 12 m² cells. Consequently, the poorest inmates – children included – slept in the “boat” position: each person sits between the legs of another person, pressed up against them. Inmates must move as little as possible to avoid being struck by others – if one moves, the whole row is awakened. Prisoners in a position to pay or who have outside benefactors are given access to more comfortable sleeping arrangements.²

CB. Prison overpopulation is a real scourge in a number of prisons in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in big cities. This situation is very complicated to handle, both for the prisoners but also for the guards tasked with monitoring them, especially since the latter are typically few and inadequately trained.

In many prisons, although it is prohibited by international standards, an informal system to manage order and security, led by prisoners, has been established.

Discipline, access to resources and to health services, and even cell assignment are often controlled by a few inmates.

In some countries, this type of informal, social, hierarchical organisation was initiated to compensate for the total absence of management by the authorities. In others, it was a delegation of power from the penitentiary personnel. These phenomena greatly complicate the execution of interventions in the prisons because they lead to a significant risk of exploitation and discrimination in regard to accessing resources and services.