Introduction: Context, approach and purpose

confronted by practice
towards a critical
psychology of prison
practices in Nigeria
a Ph.D. dissertation by Andrew M. Jefferson
Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen
Department of Sociology, University of Jos
Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims
July 2004

Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ 7
CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................... 11
INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, APPROACH AND PURPOSE.................................... 13
Background 13
Prisons research 14
Why Nigeria? 20
Nigeria’s socio-political context 21
The project’s local context: prisons, human rights and NGO’s 25
The project’s global context 29
The project’s approach 30
The project’s purpose 32
The structure of the dissertation 33
CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................... 37
FIELD-BASED PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH ....................................................... 39
Psychology and anthropology 39
Access 40
The significance of traversing multiple sites and contexts of action 56
Summary 61
CHAPTER 3 ........................................................................................................... 63
FRAMING THE ANALYSIS OF THE EMPIRICAL MATERIAL .................................... 65
Critical Psychology’s “science of the subject” 66
Themes for a theory of social practice: learning, everyday life and change 71
Towards a theory of social practice 74
Returning to Critical Psychology 77
(Not) On knowledge 81
Reconceptualising research 83
CHAPTER 4 ........................................................................................................... 85
INTRODUCING THE FIELD..................................................................................... 87
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Contents
The introduction of British rule and the birth of prisons in Nigeria 87
The law governing prisons 89
Prison formations 90
The aims of Nigerian prisons 90
Introducing the prisons 92
The prison population 98
The prison staff 99
The training institutions 101
Humanist and nationalist accounts of the job 103
Challenges facing prisons 107
Summary 109
CHAPTER 5 ......................................................................................................... 111
PERSONS-IN-PRACTICE: PRISON OFFICER TRAJECTORIES............................... 113
Torhile’s background and upbringing 114
Early years in the prison 118
The fusion of work and home 121
Everyday life 123
Hangings 128
Further reflections on degrees of freedom/scope of possibilities 131
Accounts of typical practice 134
Summary 141
CHAPTER 6 ......................................................................................................... 143
TRAINING SCHOOL PRACTICE.......................................................................... 145
Introduction 145
Total institutions? 146
Drill, schooling and discipline 149
Disciplinary practices 155
Welfare in relation to disciplinary practices 161
Training school politics / intrigues 162
Summary 165
4

Contents
CHAPTER 7 ......................................................................................................... 167
PRISON PRACTICES ........................................................................................... 169
Prisoner delivery as public spectacle: an ordering practice 169
Further ordering practices: gatelodge routines 173
Pursuing practices of othering and discipline 179
Ordering, othering and discipline grounded in an ideology of corrections 188
Summary 194
CHAPTER 8 ......................................................................................................... 195
TRACING THE MOVEMENT FROM TRAINING SCHOOL TO PRISON.................. 197
Officers’ constructions of each other 198
Torhile's struggle to adjust 199
Starting work in the prison yard after training 201
The expansion and limitation of possibilities 205
The entry of “new generations” 213
Talk about (relations to) prisoners 218
Summary 223
CHAPTER 9 ......................................................................................................... 225
AN EXTERNALLY SPONSORED TRAINING INTERVENTION................................. 227
Background 228
The opening ceremony 228
The training-of-trainers workshop on good prison practice 230
Presentation and discussion of selected publications 1996 - 2002 237
The closing ceremony 244
Examination of speeches 245
Summary 252
CHAPTER 10 ....................................................................................................... 253
PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGING PRACTICE ....................................................... 255
Change in relation to practice 255
Barriers to change 257
Education as a route to change? 266
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Contents
Minor ripples or tidal waves? 267
Problematising the bases for interventions 268
Western NGO's understandings of change 274
Returning to practice: Howard’s historical reform legacy 275
Summary - designing alternative interventions / revealing gaps 276
CHAPTER 11 ....................................................................................................... 279
HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING AS PART OF A GLOBAL(ISING) DISCOURSE ......... 281
Locating human rights training within development discourse 283
The rich get richer, the poor get excluded 286
From a semiotic of accusation to pragmatic impact 291
Opening up transformative spaces 293
Summary 295
CHAPTER 12 ....................................................................................................... 297
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION......................................................................... 299
Chapter by chapter summaries 299
Conclusion 302
Unexplored territory / future directions 304
DANISH SUMMARY ............................................................................................ 307
REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 315
APPENDICES...................................................................................................... 331
APPENDIX 1 - PROJECT’S DEVELOPING DESIGN............................................. 333
APPENDIX 2 - LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE, UNIVERSITY OF JOS ..........................339
APPENDIX 3 – APPLICATION TO CONDUCT RESEARCH.................................. 340
APPENDIX 4 - LETTERS OF AUTHORITY .................................................................341
APPENDIX 5 - FEDERAL PRISON CAMP LAMINGO .......................................... 343
APPENDIX 6 - RANKING SYSTEM AND SALARY SCALE .................................... 345
APPENDIX 7 - AFTER CARE SURVEY FORM....................................................... 346
6

Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I owe a debt of gratitude to a variety of people without whom this project
would never have come this far. The project has benefited from the advice
and loyalty of no less than three supervisors. Ole Dreier of the Department
of Psychology has demonstrated an engagement in the project beyond the
call of duty and I am indebted not only to his sharp analytic eye but also his
ongoing encouragement. Likewise anthropologist Henrik Rønsbo, of the
Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT), has
provided constant support and provocation from the margins. The value of
such back-up is immeasurable. In Nigeria, Professor Alemika of the
University of Jos supervised the fieldwork. His connections, the warmth and
hospitality he and his family showed me and mine, as well as his
criminological expertise was a true blessing to the project.
Without the co-operation of the Nigerian Prisons Service and the officers I
interacted with, interviewed and for a time lived amongst, this project would
have been a non-starter. Credit must go to the prison authorities for their
openness. To the prison staff families I stayed with – your hospitality and
kindness I will never forget.
I am indebted to three institutions - RCT, the Department of Sociology
University of Jos and the Department of Psychology at the University of
Copenhagen. Participation in the ongoing trans-disciplinary research and
practice milieu at RCT has been an invaluable component of my ongoing
education as a researcher. Thanks go to colleagues and students at RCT,
especially my fellow Ph.D. students Jessica Carlsson and Dorte Reff Olsen
– it’s good to have company! At UniJos I was privileged to be able to have
discussions with a number of students and faculty members and I was
helped by the kindness of Musa Gaiya of the Department of Religious
Studies and Phil Ostien of the Law Department and their families. The
Psychology Department in Copenhagen provided an interface with
undergraduates and other Ph.D. students. I am particularly grateful for the
concrete input to the project in the form of shared supervision meetings with
Lotte Huniche, Tove Borg, Kasper Kristensen and Iben Hauge. In addition
Charlotte Mathiassen and Line Lerch Mørck have been valued sparring
partners. A special thank you is due to Charlotte, Lotte and Liv Os Stolan
who offered valuable feedback on a late, draft manuscript.
Special thanks to Sunday Solomon who drove impeccably and provided
company and security during my numerous trips across Nigeria. I have
7

Acknowledgements
never before been so dependent on anybody – and I was never let down.
Sunday - to you and your family - thank you. In addition, I am grateful to
the Danish missionaries Per and Rikke Haahr and Jesper and Bente Gaarden
for sharing the blue compound with me as well as the anxieties of living far
from home.
The influence of Jean Lave on this project will become evident. For
engagement, conversation, inspiration and coffee in Christiania I am deeply
grateful. At RCT, Aase Young has provided tireless secretarial support and
student assistants Helene Risør and Cathrine Skov deserve thanks for
helping with some of the more odious tasks involved with creating this final
product. Special thanks to Gary Collins for the cover, Jeppe Sørensen for
doctoring the photographs and to Lykke Johansen for being yourself and
ongoing friendship. Anne Marie Sørensen translated the Danish summary
and I am likewise grateful for the diverse input of Niels Kastfelt, Finn
Stepputat, Steffen Jensen, Ida Koch, Joe Sim and members of the European
Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control whose critical edge has
been an inspiration.
The project has been supported by a grant from Rådet for Ulandsforskning. I
trust I have used the money wisely.
I am grateful to the conducive atmosphere of the wine-bar Panzon in
Østerbro, and to Bruno and his colleagues who never once complained
about my books and papers spread across the bar late on Saturday nights.
Closer to home, my own family – Lotte, Marie and Joshua – have been
burdened to a degree beyond what ought to be permitted, during the three
years of this project. I can never repay the loyalty and support that
continued despite my four-month absence and dubious prioritising. I realise
the end result can never justify the absence; I can only say thank you for
love, for believing in me and for having me back.
Thanks too to Lotte’s parents – John and Else – for helping out and to my
own – Philip and Janet - for worrying about me whilst in Africa as only
parents can, and to Rikke and Søren for supporting Lotte, Marie and Joshua
in my absence.
The extent of my debt of gratitude demonstrates how a research project such
as this is never the product of a single, isolated person’s work but rather the
product of a complex constellation of relations. My thanks go to all those –
named and unnamed - that have been part of that constellation.
8

Perhaps the job of the academic researcher is
primarily to bring the contours of dominant
‘maps’ more clearly into focus so that in turn we
can all better address the various principles,
perspectives, and moral issues that are
involved… In short, there are no magical tools,
and the task of the social scientific community is
to articulate the complexity of social problems as
well as suggesting potential directions in
responding to them.
McMahon 2000: 29
A recognition of the historical and societal
embeddedness, not just of the subject matter, but
of scientific theory and practice, is a minimum
requirement for overcoming the blind
reproduction of dominant societal priorities.
9
Tolman 1991: 9

CHAPTER 1
11

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
Introduction: context, approach and purpose
The purpose of this dissertation is to empirically explore the relationships
and practices within which Nigerian prison officers are caught up. The
ambition of this introductory chapter is to elaborate on the background to
the project, and introduce the project’s context, and the approach adopted.
The explicit focus of the research will emerge and the purpose of the
dissertation will be expanded upon at the end of the chapter, prior to an
introduction to the structure of the dissertation.
Background
In recent years, prisons and prison staff in newly democratised, developing
countries have become targets for interventions often in the form of human
rights training. This has come about based on the role prisons and prison
officers play as part of repressive state security apparatus under dictatorial
regimes. Following transition they then become targets of externally
sponsored interventions, given the desire of new governments to
demonstrate their democratic credentials, both to citizens and the
international community (Ronsbo 2000; Ronsbo and Rytter 2001). Since
2000 the Danish organisation, the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for
Torture Victims (RCT) which is active in this field, has developed a
research theme focusing on such developments. The theme concerns the
dynamics and possibilities for change of state security apparatus and
represents a strand in RCT’s work on the prevention of torture and
organised violence. This dissertation and the research on which it is based
falls within this research theme and contributes to the theme’s ongoing
development as an area of study.
Prisons and places of detention (as examples of sensitive sites) present, in
my opinion, classic sites for casting light on persons in practice and on
psychological phenomena. I believe therefore that there is an ethical
imperative for psychologists to research and theorise the way such
institutions operate and the way subjects are constituted in such places – not
by recourse to reductionist, simplistic models but by attempting through
intensive, systematic engagement to mirror the complexity of such social
fields and persons’ complex participation in them, thereby laying a
foundation for considering possibilities for change, that is expanding the
scope of possibilities.
13

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
This is the background for the initialising of this particular research project,
a project that casts light on prison staff, their training and work practices,
and on prison institutions and interventions designed to change them. In
what follows I contextualise this study in the light of relevant literature and
research.
Prisons research
Serious research that provides new knowledge in the area of incarceration
is very scant. (Morris, in Weiss and South 1998: 4)
The focus of this project is on prison practice and prison staff actions and
possibilities for action. Whilst practitioners have been active in the field of
penal reform in non-industrialised countries for some years there is
extremely little substantial research-based literature. Particularly notable,
given the interests of this dissertation, is the absence of literature focussing
on the everyday goings-on of prison staff practice. Similarly there is
scarcely any literature on the way prison staff themselves relate to and
handle their jobs, the training they are given and the changes that might or
might not ensue post-transition. The literature that does exist on posttransition,
developing countries’ prisons either describes prison systems and
legal frameworks or takes the form of human rights reports and inspection
reports written by non-governmental organisations or international agencies
documenting the state of prisons. These reports are overwhelmingly critical,
tending to focus on terrible physical conditions for prisoners, violence,
overcrowding, and the fact that the vast majority of prisoners tend to be
awaiting trial. In many cases these reports must be understood as part of a
political struggle prior to the democratic transition (e.g. Civil Liberties
Organisation 1991). Significantly then, very little work has been done on
prisons in post-transition, developing countries at the level of prison
officers’ situated practice or utilising an intensive field-based methodology. 1
This research project is an attempt to redress this lack.
The majority of prisons research in the latter half of the 20 th century has
been dominated by sociological studies of prison life. The scene was set for
this by the foundational work of, amongst others, Clemmer (1940), Sykes
(1958), and Cressey (1961), which provided important insights into how
1 One infamous, and inspirational, early study that took subject perspectives seriously and
was intensive and field-based is Cohen and Taylor’s study of high security prisoners in
Durham’s E wing (Cohen and Taylor 1972). The importance of this study lies as much in
how it was received and dismissed as illegitimate by the prison authorities as it does in the
important insights into the lives of subjects conducting their lives in the context of a high
security unit.
14

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
prisoners coped with prison and the types of effects prison had on them.
Subsequent criminological work in the 1960’s and 1970’s continued to
focus largely on what went on inside the prison walls (Ignatieff 1983).
Mathiesen’s work on the other hand, (e.g. Mathiesen 1971), represents a
shift towards recognising that to understand prisons it is vital to look
beyond, as well as within, the prison walls, and set the stage for a whole
movement of critical work looking at the prison in the wider societal context
(see for example Scraton, Sim and Skidmore (1991); Ruggiero, Ryan and
Sim, (1995); Van Svaaningen (1997)).
Prison studies have exerted tremendous influence on the social sciences.
One needs only to think of the influence of the work of Michel Foucault
(e.g. Discipline and Punish, 1977) and Erving Goffman (e.g. Asylums,
1961). Also important to bear in mind are the historical, revisionist studies
of Rothman (1971), Foucault (1977) and Ignatieff (1978) which, each in
their own way debunk the myth that the history of prisons has been a linear
development from conditions of barbarity to conditions of civilisation. This
line of argument is important with regard to my own interest in pursuing
agendas of change.
Despite these important studies there remain significant gaps. There is a
dearth, for example, of serious research on incarceration from a comparative
perspective (South and Weiss 1998) and on staff-prisoner relationships
(Liebling and Price 1998). The area of practices and relations in prisons is
under explored (Liebling, Elliot and Price 1999) and very little work has
been conducted on human rights training in developing countries (Welch
1995). Likewise, human rights issues have been neglected by criminologists
(Cohen 1993), though more recently, under the rubric of state crime, such
issues have begun to be taken up (e.g. Green 2003; Tombs and Whyte
2003).
Psychological research has tended to focus only on prisoners. Studies
typically relate to typologies of offenders (e.g. Farrington 1994), ways of
coping with prison and prison environments (Toch 1977; Zamble and
Porporino 1988), and rehabilitation of offenders (e.g. Cullen, Jones and
Woodward 1997). It is perhaps surprising that psychologists have not
concerned themselves more systematically with prison staff. I consider this
neglect in more detail below.
The neglect of prison staff
Prison staff in many countries feel themselves to be alienated from the
organizations which employ them, from the society which causes the
15

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
organization to come into existence, from the reform bodies who in various
ways monitor and seek to influence the direction of prison affairs, and from
increasingly large numbers of prisoners. (Thomas 1978: 62)
It goes without saying that prison staff have an enormous effect on the
social world in which prisoners are enmeshed (McKorkle 1956). Indeed
both prisoners and prison staff share to some extent an “enclosed life”
(Council of Europe 1997). This fact has apparently been overlooked by
researchers (with the notable exception of Goffman 1961). Despite the
diversity and differences within prison research one similarity is that it is
characterised by a focus on prisons and prisoners. It is seldom that prison
staff are at the forefront of analyses. Similarly most human rights
documentation work on prisons focuses primarily on the conditions for the
prisoner, and only indirectly on prison staff, and then often only as
perpetrator or agent of state violence. This absence points to the difficulty of
taking all parties into account when considering the multiplicity of actors
caught up in complex social practices, especially when pursuing a specific
agenda. Paradoxically, the importance of staff both for the functioning of
prisons and for researchers trying to understand prisons has been
emphasised repeatedly (McKorkle 1956; Goffman 1961; Mathiesen 1965;
Klare 1973; Adler and Longhurst 1994; Liebling and Price 1998) but the
accompanying substantive research has remained largely absent. Over
twenty-five years ago Thomas, author of one of the few texts on the prison
officer (Thomas 1972), decried the neglect of staff perspectives by policy
makers and administrators:
No assessment of a prison system in historical terms can be complete
without some account of staff. Yet, very little indeed has been written
about prison staff, except in terms which apologize for their apparent
intransigence. Next, there are, crudely operational reasons for pondering
the attitudes of staff. No prison system will move in any direction without
their co-operation. (Thomas 1978: 58)
These remarks remain as true today. Perhaps inevitably, the dearth of
research on prisons and prison staff described above is even more extreme
in the case of non-industrialised countries. Whilst there are important calls
made for more comparative perspectives these seldom reach or envisage
comparisons beyond the Western world.
16

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The absence of “international” perspectives
With the exception of work by Piacentini (2003) on the theme of the
spreading of international penal norms with reference to developments in
Russia, there is very little field-based research addressing penal
developments in post-transition or non-industrialised countries. Both Arthur
(1991) and Brown (2002) highlight the absence of such work in their
historical studies of West Africa and India respectively. Arthur paints with
rather broad brush strokes the development of penal policy in “British”
West Africa where Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gambia
experienced the imposition of a system of law and a system of punishment
built on premises entirely different to those which governed the social order
prior to colonization. Brown’s more analytic study examines colonial
penality in India and demonstrates the significance of such studies for
theorising both “historical and contemporary penal trends” (2002: 406). A
lesson to be learned from Brown is that it can be profitable both to look to
the past and to other contexts where Western penal politics have been
played out with a view to understanding both contemporary penal politics
and the way in which they involve global dynamics. Brown argues that the
excess of penality that features in current Western criminological and social
policy was already a feature of colonial policy in India and was a crucial
aspect of the formation of the colonial state. Thus what we see emerging
today is not so much a break with the past as a recursion.
Another example of historical work is that of Peters (2002a; 2002b) whose
discussion of the establishment of prisons in Egypt is a useful example of
the difficulties of archival research in such contexts. The South African
penal system and institutions have received some attention following the
transition from the apartheid regime, both from researchers and reform
agencies (e.g. Cronjé 2001; van Zyl Smit 1984; van Zyl Smit in Weiss and
South 1998). Indeed, the example of the demilitarisation of the South
African prison service following the downfall of the apartheid regime
provides an interesting comparison to the Nigerian situation (Centre for
Conflict Resolution 2002a and 2002b).
In recent years, the International Centre for Prisons Studies (ICPS), an
organisation surely well-placed to conduct such work, has begun to turn its
attention to the former Communist block, (another example of posttransition
changes in criminal justice systems), and Africa (e.g. World
Prison Briefs ICPS; Coyle 2002). Its work however shows a tendency
towards policy-oriented advocacy rather than field-based research.
17

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
In what follows I emphasise the value of prisons research that looks beyond
the industrialised world. I argue that research about other contexts does not
necessarily have to be comparative, though comparative studies are
important in terms of capturing the complexity and interrelations in
developments of prison systems. My concern though is that comparative
studies can underplay the value of conducting in-depth studies of particular
countries’ prisons in their own right. Nigerian prisons are not only important
as a counterpoint to our own. They have meaning and significance in their
own right especially for those inhabiting and working in them. Having said
that, there remains an urgent need for comparative perspectives that look
beyond the regional, and surpass the preoccupation with the Anglo-
American comparison. 2 Such perspectives demand in the first instance
understandings of specific local conditions and dynamics.
Two texts stand out with regard to comparative perspectives on prisons:
Weiss and South’s Comparing Penal Systems (1998) and King and
Maguire’s Prisons in Context (1994). Both of these important texts more or
less consciously ignore perspectives from the non-industrialised world. To
title the introduction to Prisons in Context, “an international perspective”
whilst ignoring perspectives from the less industrialised world is
misleading. 3
Contrasting my own approach with the approach of Weiss and South is
instructive. The selection of countries that their text covers rules out most
African countries on the basis that they are not developed enough. To be
fair, this is a rather harsh way to put it. They claim, and I agree, that to
provide any meaningful grounds for comparison there must be a baseline of
similarity between the countries included. Countries excluded are those who
could not demonstrate
…a sufficient degree of “development” to establish and maintain a major
prison system supported by some kind of guiding penology, bureaucracy of
prison administration, law enforcement establishment, judicial system and
explicit politics of penal discourse (Weiss and South 1998: 8)
They acknowledge that certain countries lie on the borders of such a
definition. Nigeria, the focus of this study, is undoubtedly one of these. It
has an established penal system, a bureaucracy, a judicial system, and a
2 See Garland (2001) whose work exemplifies this preoccupation.
3 The tone of discussions of comparative issues at the self-styled Scottish Criminology
Conference held in Edinburgh in September 2003 was strangely ethnocentric. Calls for
social analyses of penality meant clearly Western penality even as comparative studies
were called for.
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
system of law enforcement. The issue is perhaps the credibility/legitimacy
of these institutions and their practices yet this is arguably an issue for all
criminal justice systems.
A more pragmatic criterion that surely played a role in the exclusion of a
vast number of less developed and developing countries in their study is that
there is so little known about penal practices in such countries and acquiring
relevant material is relatively difficult, demanding and potentially
dangerous.
This study is not overtly comparative. It is strictly speaking Nigeria specific.
However a comparative element is intrinsic to the project given that it is an
ethnographic project. I went as an outsider to examine the Nigerian prisons,
not just any old outsider but an outsider with prior knowledge and
experience of English (and Danish) prison contexts and systems, and with a
specific interest in colonial and post-colonial developments and ongoing
outsider interventions. The point is that whilst the study does not intend to
be comparative in a strict sociological sense of systematically comparing the
penal systems of two distinct locations, it is unavoidably comparative
because I come to it as an outsider with my particular, localised subject
position.
Weiss and South’s book is a sociological account, which also distinguishes
it from my own project. In their introduction they speak of how the
respective authors examine policy, discourse and ideas of penality. For
them, penal practice remains at this level as so much criminological work
does. 4 What remains absent are in-depth practice and subject focussed
studies. Conceptual and empirical attention must be paid to penal systems
and practices beyond the West because Western administrators and socalled
experts are making policy and intervening in such contexts.
Normative penal models are being exported. Without empirical studies and
conceptual analyses of the fields in which these interventions are being
made, policy cannot be challenged. The more policies and practices go
unquestioned and spread globally the more hegemonic they are likely to
become and the more difficult they will be to challenge.
4 Even Garland and Smith’s The Power to Punish from 1983, which in many ways was a
groundbreaking book does not live up to its ambitions. At the Scottish Criminology
Conference already referred to, David Garland acknowledged that the turn towards politics
in the book was an aspiration and not an actuality. The aspirations of that book remain to be
actualised in practice.
19

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
As I have stated my project is different from Weiss and South’s attempt to
develop a comparative and international penology in two respects. Firstly it
is comparative in a different way and secondly it adopts not a sociological
frame of analysis but a frame that makes persons in practice central. This
does not mean I ignore politics and social structures but I do not begin with
them. I begin with the understandings of prison staff and the outworkings of
these in practice.
In closing their introductory chapter Weiss and South introduce some
similarities in recent international penal developments. They describe these
as “substantial and depressing” (1998: 14) reflecting as they do an apparent
hardening of penal philosophy across the world. Given that the volume
largely concerns industrialised countries this raises the question that seems
to pursue me in relation to Western interventions into developing countries’
penal systems – what is it exactly we have to offer? How can it be that we
wish to export our “substantial and depressing” developments? I return to
this question in chapter eleven.
In this section I have introduced some issues in relation to studies of prisons
around the world. At a fundamental level I contend that prisons the world
over are more similar than they are different. Differences are a product of
broad material and societal differences. There are common features to
prisons. For example, they warehouse people under conditions where there
are clear power differentials at work. They are places of exclusion and
marginalisation where violence is common, budgets inadequate and policy
development under-prioritised by central governments. However despite
these fundamental similarities it is my contention that the dynamics of
exclusion and marginalisation, the practices and routines of the everyday,
the ways in which staff and prisoners relate, do need to be understood
locally, as do the ways in which structural issues are played out and come to
matter. In the next section I introduce the reasons why Nigeria was chosen
as location for this study.
Why Nigeria?
As indicated, the research material that lays the foundation for this
dissertation was collected in Nigeria, amongst Nigerian prison staff and
prison institutions. Before entering into a discussion of the socio-political
context that Nigerian prison staff and institutions find themselves in I wish
to state the reasons why Nigeria was chosen as the location for this study.
Nigeria as a country in which to conduct fieldwork has rarely been
recommended to me. In fact, I cannot count the number of people who tried
20

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
to put me off Nigeria. However, there are five reasons, that can be posed in
the form of criteria, that make Nigeria an ideal case for this study. The first
is political. In 1999, after a long post-independence history of military
regimes, Nigeria underwent a transition to a democratic form of governance,
that critics of the previous military regimes hoped would represent a
transition to democracy, and President Obasanjo – himself a former prisoner
– made statements that suggested that the time was indeed ripe for prison
reform. This created a set of conditions common to post-transition
democracies where human rights are brought into focus and reform rhetoric
about penal systems can be heard. The fact that a poor human rights record
in prisons is confronted explicitly by statements from a newly elected
civilian regime, is the second criterion. The third criterion relates to the fact
that externally sponsored interventions are underway in Nigeria in the form
of training programmes for Nigerian prison staff. The final two criteria
relate more to the researcher than the project’s focus. Nigeria meets the
criteria of having English as its official language and it is a former British
colony. Given my own background as a native English speaker and my
former experience working within the British criminal justice system these
factors were considered advantageous. Whilst the choice of Nigeria as the
geographical location of this study was clearly not arbitrary neither was it
given. Other countries could meet the criteria and similar studies in such
countries would no doubt be valuable.
Let me turn now to the specifics of the Nigerian socio-political context, the
background against which Nigerian prison staff conduct their lives and the
context into which I as a researcher was thrown.
Nigeria’s socio-political context 5
Nigerian prisons, their staff and their inmates are both situated and historical
actors and institutions. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to
dwell in too much detail on the social structures and enduring struggles that
frame everyday life in Nigeria, some level of background is required. The
themes of violence, politics and security that I consider below, provide more
than just a backdrop to the ongoing practices of prison officers and prison
institutions. They are to a degree constitutive of the scope of possibilities
available to prison staff and prison institutions.
5 I am grateful to historian and Nigeria expert Niels Kastfelt (University of Copenhagen)
and Anne Bay Paludan (project co-ordinator for Africa, RCT) for feedback on this section.
21

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
Violence, politics and uncertainty
Nigeria is a rich West African country with oil a tremendous source of
revenue yet it faces many challenges not least the bringing together of
aspiration and actuality. The country’s wealth has been frittered into
international bank accounts by corrupt military regimes of the past and
development during the oil boom of the 1970’s did not live up to its
potential due to mismanagement and the lining of pockets by those in
power. Poverty in the form of lack of resources and a generally
acknowledged mismanagement of resources has left basic infrastructures
such as roads, electricity provision, and transport in need of urgent attention.
In 2001 when this project was beginning Nigeria was two years into a new
democratic dispensation. Now, in 2004, as I put the finishing touches to this
dissertation Nigeria is one year into a second period of civilian rule.
President Obasanjo was re-elected in 2003 amidst controversy and
allegations of rigging and political intimidation across the country. On paper
the re-election of a civilian government marked a milestone, a victory for
the will to democratisation, the first time in three and a half decades of
Nigeria’s troubled political history since independence, that elections had
resulted in continued civilian-led government. Yet on the ground at the time
of writing Nigeria faces perhaps the biggest crisis of its young democratic
life. Obasanjo has recently declared a state of emergency in Plateau state –
the state where I had my base - firing the state governor and replacing him
with a military figure. And this in the middle belt state whose motto is
“home of peace and tourism” and where before the outbreak of communal
violence in 2001, such violence was rare. Communal violence exploded in
Jos on 7 th September 2001 to be immediately overshadowed by the events of
9/11 in New York, at least in the eyes of the international media. Over a
thousand people were killed and many thousands more displaced as homes,
churches, mosques, and other properties were burned (see Human Rights
Watch 2001). During the time I was based in Jos in 2002 – for 2 periods of
4 months – there was always a visible military presence in and around the
town. Soldiers were posted at the gate of the guest house where I stayed
(and where for two and a half months of the first period of fieldwork my
wife and two young children stayed too) and armed police kept watch on the
veranda of the guest house common room. Such precautions cannot prevent
the eruption of sporadic, localised, short duration violence. We were
fortunate – or unfortunate depending on the way one looks at it – that our
first experience of such violence came on the final day of the first period of
fieldwork as we were preparing to depart for the airport at Kano. Here is not
the place for a detailed, dramatic account of the taxi ride my 4-year-old
daughter and I took across town, past fleeing citizens, nervous soldiers,
22

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
burning cars and bleeding corpses. Neither do I wish to describe in detail the
fear, doubt, and uncertainty that my wife felt as she contemplated defending
herself and our soon-to-be one-year-old son with a kitchen knife, in the face
of the chaos erupting around the guest house compound. Suffice to say that
this experience left its mark and gave a faint impression of what it is like to
live under such uncertain circumstances.
In 2000, journalist Karl Maier published a highly acclaimed account of
contemporary Nigeria subtitled Nigeria in crisis. How apt this title appears
to be. There passes rarely more than a week without the arrival of an email
update from IRIN, (the United Nations information service) with further
news of armed militias clashing with police or soldiers or each other or with
news of X thousand more displaced persons, the result of tribal/ethnic and
religious flavoured rivalries and contestations over land and power. And
these clashes range across the country from the Christian south to the
Muslim north, from Port Harcourt to Kano.
Political culture in Nigeria is contentious and plagued by conspiracy
theories, fuelled by tribal/ethnic prejudices and divisions. Perhaps
conspiracy theories are rife under conditions of uncertainty? Maybe they are
particular attempts to make sense of events and govern action in response to
events? It seems to me at least that in Nigerian society much is unknown
and uncertain. This uncertainty ranges from doubts about the arrival of the
rainy season, to doubts about the provision of electricity and water. The
only certainty seems to be God or Allah. The “praying president” as the
newspapers referred to him during his official indecision about whether to
run as presidential candidate in the 2003 elections, exemplifies the
importance of the interlinking of religious with political culture.
Obasanjo’s latest move to restore order by creating a state of emergency in
Plateau, following a massacre in Yelwa and a number of revenge attacks, is
perhaps the sign of an increasing sense of impotence and powerlessness. He
has formerly exhibited a tendency to send in the military to quell local
disturbances. In March 2002 he was criticised by the judiciary for this tactic
(cited by IRIN, and This Day, 4.3.02). More than 200 people were
reportedly killed and thousands fled as soldiers exacted revenge on village
communities following militia attacks. A tragic pattern seems to be
emerging.
At the local level, crime control – at least in certain areas - has fallen into
the hands of armed vigilante groups who double up as hired thugs for
politicians and whose methods show little by way of respect for human
23

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
rights, featuring rather disappearances, summary executions and detention
without trial (see Human Rights Watch 2002). The police have been ordered
to resort to increasingly hardcore tactics. A national campaign – fire for fire
– was instigated during 2002, a kind of official doctrine of shoot to kill if
fired upon, where newspapers report with apparent glee every time the
police are successful in killing a group of armed robbers. When crisis and
conflicts do occur it is said that the innocent bystander is in as much danger
from police or soldiers as from rioting youths, militias or criminal elements.
Law enforcement agencies and the military appear in Nigeria as
simultaneously security and threat and often operate independently of
government. In such cases issues of accountability (e.g. in relation to human
rights abuses) become complicated.
Security plays an important role in Nigeria in relation to the definition of
human rights. Human rights are talked about in quite specific ways. In
Nigeria, fundamental human rights are enshrined in the constitution but
when written about are most often seen in tension with internal and external
security concerns:
As Nigeria is member of the United Nations, she keenly supports its charter
on human rights. As far as social, cultural, political and economic factors
permit, the treatment and protection of human rights of offenders within the
territory do not reflect any departures from the letter and spirit of the
charter. (Abeji 1987: 7, my italics)
The problematic dilemma of striking a balance between the need to protect
and enforce the constitutionally-guaranteed (and other) human rights of
citizens on the one hand and the equally “sacred” duty of the state to
safeguard the internal and external security of the nation on the other, has
been a recurring, an ever-present, challenge to leadership (legitimate and or
legal) in virtually all Third-World nations, be it military or civilian.
(Odekunle 1989: vii) 6
These are some of the features of contemporary Nigeria. Democracy is
fragile but holding. Who knows for how long? Rights are acknowledged but
always in tension with security concerns. In spite of (or because of) the
transition to civilian rule Nigeria faces numerous challenges. The brief
honeymoon of optimism granted the new government in 1999 has given
way to an increasingly disillusioned public regarding the government’s
ability to govern (though not regarding belief in democracy as preferred
form of government (cf. Afrobarometer 2002). For the most part though,
6 These may be just more honest accounts of the status of human rights than we are used to
hearing. Post 9/11 and post-Abu Ghraib the tensions between human rights and security
have also come to the foreground in the West.
24

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
local people continue to live their lives, to go to work, market, school, and
college, to attend church or mosque, to queue for fuel or wait for the bus or
whatever daily routines demand. It is against this background that prison
staff conduct their lives.
In terms of international connections Nigeria is a key player in the African
Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Strong links are also maintained with the UK and the Commonwealth. The
British Council and the Department for International Development (DFID)
are both active in different and overlapping areas. Likewise USA is active,
through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Denmark
is not formally or directly (via DANIDA) involved in development work in
Nigeria – though business links and diplomatic links are quite strong. In
terms of development assistance Denmark is active through secondary
channels (e.g. my own project supported by Rådet for Ulandsforskning; a
Water Supply Programme, funded by Dansk Missions Råd (Udviklings
Afdeling); Africa in Touch funded via Danske Ungdoms Fællesråd (DUF);
and a variety of mission projects supported by Sudanmissionen). In the last
15-20 years Nigeria has experienced an NGO revolution (Welch 1995).
Externally funded local projects are not only a source of improving local
conditions but also of revenue to resourceful local project managers and
staff. Nigerians are aware of this and seem alert to opportunities to make
international contacts.
Having created an impression of the broad socio-political context within
which prison officers and other Nigerians conduct their lives I turn now to
contextualise Nigerian prison institutions in the light of human rights and in
relation to non-governmental organisations.
The project’s local context:
prisons, human rights and NGO’s
It is widely documented that prisons in Nigeria – like prisons the world over
- are facing a crisis of legitimacy (see Alemika 1993). 7 In this section I do
7 The “crisis of legitimacy” facing prisons has been most strongly articulated by critical
criminologists (see Mathiesen 1990, Van Svaaningen 1997). In its broadest form the crisis
is a product of the recognition that prisons do not achieve their aims – they do not deter;
they do not reduce recidivism; they only seem to warehouse violence. Various responses
have emerged to the crisis, including prison building programmes, alternative to custody
experiments, increased privatisation of prisons etc. (Matthews and Francis, 1996). But as
Foucault (1979) pointed out prisons are always suggested as the solution to their own crisis.
Thus the questions of legitimacy remain unanswered. In developing countries the
25

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
not introduce the prisons in any great detail. This is saved until chapter four.
Here the prisons are presented in relation to the problems they experience
that human rights training interventions are supposed to confront.
Human rights in Nigerian prisons
Prison conditions remained poor and sometimes life-threatening, despite
government promises to release funds for improvements as part of longerterm
prison reform plans. Prisons were congested, with inadequate
facilities and very limited access to medical care. More than two-thirds of
detainees were held without trial, many having spent several years in
detention. Torture and ill-treatment were widespread, especially in police
custody. (Human Rights Watch 2002b)
The “NGO revolution” in Nigeria (Welch 1995: 45), arguably beginning
with the founding of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) in 1987
signalled an intense interest and activism around issues of prison conditions,
prison reform and criminal justice which continues unabated. In spite of the
wide extent of human rights violations in Nigerian prisons during the 1980’s
“1990 witnessed remarkable government as well as non government interest
in the theme of prison reform” (Civil Liberties Organisation 1991a).
CLO has produced numerous reports into prison conditions including a
scathing and disturbing National Prisons Report based on inspections of 56
prisons during 1990 (Civil Liberties Organisation 1991b). Ten years later
there remained a cautious but optimistic tone particularly following the
return to civilian rule. The shift to civilian rule in May 1999, which human
rights organisations sceptically hoped was a shift toward democracy,
marked a thawing of relations between successive military regimes and
vocal and confrontational human rights organisations and NGO’s.
According to CLO, 1998 “gave the best prospects for human rights in recent
memory” (CLO 1998). The Interchurch Coalition on Africa (2000) quoting
the Constitutional Rights Project (CRP) reports a similar optimism and the
president of the People’s Rights Organisation (PRO 2000) records the softpedalling
of NGO’s at the end of 1999 to give space for the new civilian
government to fulfil its promises.
Like many prisons in developing countries the conditions for prisoners in
Nigeria’s prisons have been criticised for decades. The prisons are over
crowded and all too many prisoners are merely awaiting trial, yet to be
legitimacy of prisons is challenged by documentation of human rights violations and
inhuman conditions.
26

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
convicted of any crime. In addition, the prisons have been criticised for not
protecting prisoners from violence. In fact prison staff have themselves been
accused of violating and exploiting prisoners.
When President Obasanjo was elected in May 1999, it appeared that new
times might be on the way. Obasanjo, who had been in prison himself,
accused of plotting to overthrow a previous government, made sure that
prison reform remained on the political agenda and there developed much
more openness about prisons in Nigeria, both in relation to the media,
NGO’s and religious organisations and in relation to foreign researchers like
myself. 8 Reports on prisons show the need for urgent reforms and the
civilian government has acknowledged this. One of the positive acts of
President Obasanjo in 1999 was to establish a National Prison Reform
Committee. However, concerned observers continue to warn that despite
government efforts prison conditions remain life-threatening.
A newspaper article sums matters up:
The role of the penal system in the administration of criminal justice today
is of great significance…. In theory, our prison system is intended to
guarantee justice and safeguard individual rights but in practice they have
unfortunately been used to perpetuate crimes against humanity – it is an
endless list: torture, arbitrary killing, degrading human treatment, unduly
long detention without trial, inordinate delay in executing death sentences
etc. On many occasions, the infringement of prisoners' rights occur mainly
as a result of the discrepancies in national legislation and its actual
enforcement and between judicial decisions and administrative
implementation...
… On a very sad note, these outlined rights are a far-cry from what actually
obtains in Nigerian prisons. Quite apart from the right of religion, most
prisons in our country either take these rights as privileges or neglect to
enforce them fully. Particularly of great concern are the issues relating to
the right to life and the right to trial within a reasonable time…
… According to a report of a workshop held by the non-governmental
Commonwealth Human Rights initiative, prisons were described as
8 This openness was demonstrated for example in my own case, when I was given
permission to conduct my research on the prison training schools at the first time of asking.
When I subsequently applied for permission also to enter the prisons a closing remark in
my letter of authority was “remember the prison authorities are interested in the results of
your research” This process seems to indicate the increased political openness around
prisons.
27

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
providing fertile ground for persistent and all pervasive violation of human
rights…
… Generally, the level of awareness concerning prison and prisoners' rights
in Nigeria is low and the most likely reason for this is that our laws
concerning prisons are out-dated and need urgent review. The Prison
Regulations, last revised in 1955, fall short of current practice in prison
management…
(Onyiuke 2003)
NGO’s and prison training in Nigeria
In 2001, I wrote the following:
Human rights continue to be violated in Nigerian prisons. At the same time
increasing attention is being paid to the problem. Poor staff training is
emphasised as one reason why warder violence and other forms of
degrading treatment come to be inflicted on prisoners. Training of prison
staff is therefore being utilised by both prison authorities and NGO’s to
address the problem. (Jefferson 2001)
The Nigerian human rights community is seen as particularly strong and
particularly active compared with its Anglophone neighbours. A number of
organisations feature prominently in the literature, for example Civil
Liberties Organisation (CLO), Constitutional Rights Project (CRP), Institute
of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL), Legal Research and
Resource Development Centre (LRRDC), Committee for the Defence of
Human Rights (CDHR). Each of these is active in the area of prison
reform/prisoner’s rights. Other NGO’s such as Prisoners Reform and
Welfare Action (PRAWA) and the Centre for Law Enforcement Education
(CLEEN) are less prominent in the literature but conduct concrete training
interventions. Welch (1995: 26) comments that, “Perhaps the most active
assemblage of human rights NGO’s in tropical Africa can be found in
Nigeria.”
Links between NGO’s (e.g. PRAWA) and prison authorities appear
surprisingly good. Training conducted by human rights organisations and
the Nigerian Prison Service includes training of recruits on human rights
and training of trainers in good prison practice and international human
rights standards. A number of manuals have been produced in the context of
these training programmes, which resemble current approaches to probation
practice in England and Wales. NGO’s collaborate with other agencies both
within and beyond Nigeria, for example, PRAWA works together with
Penal Reform International and the National Commission on Human Rights.
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The project’s global context
It is typical in post-transition countries for prison reform and staff training
interventions to involve the participation, support or at least sponsorship of
external agencies. This factor introduces a global context to my object of
study. Indeed, this project is rooted in the fact that industrialised countries
intervene in developing countries to further particular agendas, for example
the promotion of human rights, the reform of prison systems etc., where
other more implicit agendas are also at work. This is to say there is a global
relation implicated in the human rights training interventions that this
research attempts to contextualise and problematise. Whilst the majority of
the empirical material presented and analysed in the dissertation serves as an
in-depth contextualisation of the field that external interventions confront
and are confronted by, the final three chapters address interventions,
understandings of change and the global politics of interventions. The final
substantive chapter, for example, addresses the global dimensions of
interventions directly and critically. Global relations and inequalities of
power are suggested as ways of understanding the dynamics of interventions
made at the local level. The question of how to understand such local
interventions, at the level of global relations between North and South, is
explored via three analogies. Firstly an analogy is proposed between human
rights training and ongoing development discourse where development
discourse (following Mark Duffield 2001) is viewed as mechanical,
technical and ultimately self-serving. Secondly an analogy is drawn between
human rights training and the “successful failure” of the US criminal justice
system as characterised by Jeffrey Reiman (1995, orig. 1979). And thirdly,
drawing on work by Johanna Motzkau (forthcoming), an analogy is made
between human rights training as a development strategy and the way in
which children’s development is theorised by traditional developmental
psychologists, where for example, children are defined as a “structure of
deficits”. Common to each of these analogies is a critical reflection on the
place of interventions in relations of global power, which is a vital
supplement to the analyses of persons in local practices that make up the
bulk of the empirical chapters.
Up to this point I have introduced the background to the project, and
contextualised the project in relation to some of the pertinent literature,
some socio-political factors, and the state of Nigerian prisons in relation to
human rights. In addition, I have suggested that an important dimension of
human rights training as an intervention is the way it fulfils a role in
global(ising) North – South relations. In the final part of this introductory
chapter I explicate more clearly the intentions of the project and the
approach I adopt to the field of study.
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The project’s approach
A hermeneutics of suspicion – problematising the taken-forgranted
It's through the cracks in everything, that's how the light gets in.
(Leonard Cohen 1992)
To give some assistance in wearing away certain self-evidences and
commonplaces about madness, illness, crime and punishment; to
bring it about, together with many others, that certain phrases can no
longer be spoken so lightly, certain acts no longer, or at least no
longer so unhesitatingly, performed; to contribute to changing certain
things in people’s ways of perceiving and doing things; to participate
in this difficult displacement of forms of sensibility and thresholds of
tolerance – I hardly feel capable of attempting much more than that.
(Michel Foucault 1991: 83)
Underlying the critical psychological approach to prison practices and
especially interventions aimed at reforming them, that informs this project,
is a scepticism that I characterise as a hermeneutics of suspicion (cf. Ricoeur
1970, Robinson 1995) implying a search for the taken for granted and an
attempt to reveal contradictions.
The intention is to illuminate the practices of prison staff in training and at
work and the discourses embedded in these and develop a conceptualisation
of how change is and can be understood in such institutional contexts. The
intention is not to write a denunciation of prison practices and the prison
system in Nigeria, not to praise or condemn, but to try to understand,
contextualise and problematise such that fissures might appear in the
defining frameworks creating space for transformation and alternative ways
of acting and doing prison work. The point is to question the taken for
grantedness of everyday prison practice and the practices of those who seek
to bring about change.
This project involves turning a suspicious, sceptical eye not only on prison
practices, including training of new recruits (those that I observed, heard
about, read about and participated in, yet continue to exist in my absence)
and the discourses embedded in them, but also on the practices of external
agencies (those that I observed, heard about, read about and participated in
and continue to exist in my absence), and my own readings of practice, both
those initial impressions recorded in field and journal notes and later
analysis of these. I aspire to move a step beyond pointing out
inconsistencies and conflicts between say theory and practice, aspirations
30

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
and actuality and towards addressing the conditions that give rise to the very
possibility of these contradictions and the ways in which contradictions are
lived as persons conduct their lives. For example, how can prison officers
claim that warder brutality is a thing of the past whilst mundane violence
and humiliation is part of everyday practice? How can manuals drawing on
practices of engagement with offenders, developed and used in the UK
come to be seen as appropriate modes of transforming the Nigerian prison
systems?
My ethnographic engagement, participation and conversation with prison
officers facilitates access to first person perspectives that I arrange,
organise, and to a degree problematise. The intention is to present the
contradictions and complexities of practice(s). Another ambition is to
attempt to “engage in the tireless interrogation of what is held to be given,
necessary, natural or neutral" (Dean 1994: 20). 9 Running like a thread
throughout this dissertation is a preoccupation with persons in practice and
the development of persons-in-practice as a conceptual tool. This focus will
be further elaborated in chapter three.
The dissertation is more problematising than theoretical. This is not to say I
abandon theory and concepts but rather that my purpose, in the first
instance, is not to construct or even contribute to the construction of a
theoretical edifice but rather to try to think, understand and frame differently
the practices within which persons are caught up. Rather than developing a
theory of the Nigerian prison or prison training schools, for example, I
analyse the techniques and practices by which prisons and training work and
the rationalities and strategies invested in them. Likewise, rather than a
theory of the person-institution relation I analyse the operation of the
institution, the trajectories of persons in practice, and the techniques and
practices by which person and institution interrelate and work on each other
(cf. Dean 1994: 179).
The particular approach of this study can be characterised as an expansive
transdisciplinary approach to the study of persons-in-practice. 10 According
to Dean, Michel Foucault “somehow escaped the maze of disciplines and
specialisations and the compulsive siting of intellectual endeavours within a
science, school or tradition” (1994: 1). I too resist the tendency to bind
9 This is how Dean (1994) characterises critical histories.
10 Cf. Smith, Harré and van Langenhove (1995: 4) who imagine psychology as "an
expanded pluralistic discipline".
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
research to a specific discipline. The complex social fields with which I am
concerned demand a cross disciplinary strategy 11 .
The project’s purpose
I have presented the background for the research project, the societal and
political context of the field I explore and the approach I adopt. In summary,
the purpose of this dissertation is to empirically explore, utilising a
problematising approach, the relationships and practices within which
prison staff are caught up, which more precisely involves:
1. analysing empirically how persons participate in practice(s) that
they in some ways resist and in some ways embrace but which
ultimately seem to result in relatively static institutional (forms
and) practices
2. contributing to a problematisating approach to understanding
persons in practice, a way by which we can simultaneously
analyse participants in practice(s) and the dynamics that frame
that practice; an approach that resists surreptitious, colonialising
and globalising tendencies and challenges distributions of global
power.
My aim is to contribute to an approach to social practice that adequately
accounts for persons’ complex participation in institutions and keeps an
open eye out for opportunities for transformation. Within this framework
key concepts include participation, situated learning, and persons-inpractice.
A primary analytic question becomes:
What concepts and understandings are relevant when the
intention is to further understandings about persons in practice,
and possibilities for transformation that do not reproduce already
existing forms of inequality but rather contribute to expand
possibilities for liberative transformations of personal and
institutional practice(s)? 12
11 At the same time I do have the need for a place I can call home, at least once in a
while. In a conversation with Michael Billig in June 2003 we drew on the metaphor of
having a place to hang one’s hat, whilst discussing this issue. It is legitimate (and
enriching) to hang one’s hat different places as one journeys through the intellectual fields
that supplement and contextualise the empirical material under analysis.
12 The original formulation of these aims and this question owes much to Line Mørck’s
formulation of the purpose of her Ph.D. dissertation (Mørck, 2003: 11, 14).
32

Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The structure of the dissertation
In the remainder of this chapter I present a brief introduction to the structure
of the dissertation and the content of respective chapters in order to give the
reader some clues as to the journey on which they are about to embark.
The dissertation is divided into three parts. This chapter and chapters two
and three make up part one, where the project, the method and the
conceptual tools that guide the analysis of the empirical material are
introduced.
Chapter two, on method, is primarily about the process of entering the field.
Themes taken up revolve around the issue of accessing the primary
institutional sites of the research and the subjects of the research, that is the
prison training schools, the prisons and the prison officers. A case is made
for extended, field-based research as a necessary approach to exploring
psychological themes in complex and sensitive social fields.
Chapter three lays a foundation for the subsequent analysis of the empirical
material by introducing a number of loosely connected conceptual tools
drawn from a tradition of Critical Psychology and linked to an attempt (by
Jean Lave) to develop a comprehensive theory of social practice. The key
concept of persons-in-practice is introduced and a case is made for giving
primacy to ontology over epistemology. At the same time an analytic
strategy that focuses on subjects’ participation in contentious practice as
generative of relations of structure and subjectivity is introduced.
The second and most substantive part of the dissertation is the presentation
and analysis of the empirical material related to basic recruit training and
prison practice and is made up of chapters four through eight. This material
presents the deep context that external training interventions confront and
are confronted by.
Chapter four sets the scene, introducing the Nigerian Prisons Service, its
colonial history and current structures and purpose. The chapter is mainly
descriptive and factual though an attempt is also made to convey a sense of
how it feels to be inside a Nigerian prison. The way prison officers view the
job is also presented.
Chapter five traces the significance of a specific prison officer’s life for his
engagement in practice, pointing to the complex and contingent relations of
his specific past to his specific way of being caught up in ongoing practice.
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The particular officer’s life and career through the prison service, serve to
illustrate aspects of prison service culture and practice as well as aspects of
the officer’s own subjectivity. The job of the prison officer is presented via
the officer’s account of two typical working days, one in the training school,
another in the prison yard. 13 These presentations lead into the subsequent
chapters analysing the institutional practices of the training schools and the
prisons.
Chapters six and seven are about the institutional practices within which
prison officer trainees, trained officers and prisoners respectively are caught
up. It is argued that prison training schools and prisons exhibit a structural
homology that is informed by a shared logic of penality that has
consequences both for the ways prisoners are treated and the ways human
rights training interventions are received.
Chapter six examines the procedures, routines and practices that make up
the everyday work lives of prison officers undergoing training at one of the
three active prison training schools. Understanding such indigenous training
is vital if we are to make sense of the ways in which externally sponsored
training is understood by prison staff. Discipline is presented as a dominant
organising principle of training school practice yet it is also shown how
discipline can be eroded during ongoing practice.
Chapter seven likewise examines the procedures, routines and practices that
make up the everyday work lives of prison staff, this time those employed in
the prison yards. The logic of penality is pursued and practices of othering
and ordering are discussed as characteristic of the way in which prison staff
relate to prisoners. The ideology of corrections, as it relates to the logic of
penality and discipline is introduced in the context of what I call incidences
of mundane violence.
Chapter eight documents and traces the way in which trainees make and
understand the transition from trainee to fully trained prison officer,
referring to their shift from the one set of institutional practices to the other.
Drawing on interview materials, three sets of relations are explored, namely
relations between school-based officers and prison-based officers; relations
between junior and senior officers; and relations between staff and
prisoners. Discipline and staff expressions of tensions and potential
contradictions that arise due to the transition are elaborated upon.
13 “Prison yard” is a Nigerian idiom for prison.
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Chapter 1 - Context, approach and purpose
The final three chapters prior to the conclusion make up part three of the
dissertation and examine a concrete intervention, understandings and
agendas of change and the global dynamics of inequality that interventions
are caught up in.
Chapter nine presents and problematises an externally sponsored training
intervention aimed at sensitising prison officers to the United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Offenders. The core
assumptions relating to learning implicit in such interventions and
underlying training methods are explored. Training materials and
publications related to the training are analysed as are speeches made by key
figures representing the involved parties. It is suggested that such training
interventions are built on a foundation that is rather weak if it is to serve as a
springboard for substantive transformations of prison practices.
Chapter ten pursues the theme of agendas and understandings of change
already implicit in the previous chapter’s focus on a reform intervention.
Questions are raised about the way in which change is often theorised in
abstract terms as if its meaning were predetermined. Instead examples of
persons in practice are presented that suggest change has multiple meanings
depending on the positions people occupy and the trajectories they are
pursuing and caught up in. Barriers to institutional change are examined as
seen from the perspective of prison officers and some of the assumptions
about change of local and Western NGO’s are examined.
Chapter eleven marks an opening, a gesture beyond the dissertation’s and
psychology’s general focus on local practices towards the global dimension
of interventions. Human rights training and penal reform interventions are
critically situated as part of a global(ising) discourse. By recourse to three
analogies, as referred to earlier, an attempt is made to explain how the
effects (intended or unintended) or lack of effects of such interventions
might be understood. Drawing on work by Duffield (2001) and Reiman
(1979/2003) vital questions are raised about global relations of power and
the self-interest of intervening agencies. This chapter asks what may be
considered illegitimate questions about interventions. It also explores the
issue of the importance of critique-from-within, in the name of not merely
doing something to alleviate human suffering but of doing something
appropriate.
Chapter twelve summarises the dissertation’s main arguments and suggests
directions for further research.
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CHAPTER 2
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
Field-based psychological research
As I have explained in the previous chapter the purpose of this research was
never to evaluate or measure, for example, the impact of basic recruit
training on prison officers or the effects of human rights training, but rather
to understand the dynamics and processes within which prison staff who are
targets of such training are caught up. How do they relate to and handle their
working lives and the training interventions that feature in them? The
questions one asks as a researcher determine to some extent the method one
employs and in turn the method one employs determines the material one
can access. In appendix one, I trace the phases of the research process and
describe how the project design and method developed as the field revealed
itself. In this chapter I pursue the theme of access, giving concrete examples
from the fieldwork, examining the processes, strategies and personal
dimensions involved with accessing research sites and subjects.
My approach can be characterised as ethnographic, open and opportunistic.
Largely ignorant of West Africa before I began, and rather less ignorant of
prison practices and dynamics (though only those in the UK and Denmark) I
unavoidably adopted an open approach to my field of study. I was not out to
ensnare Africa or reduce prison staff to caricatures made in my image but
rather to get a sense of their take on their lives. I was interested in what are
known in anthropology as emic perspectives. Ethnography is not the method
of choice of most psychologists. My refusal to accept the boundaries of the
discipline allows me to look beyond and to borrow and steal from, for
example in the case of the ethnographic approach, anthropology. Below I
present some early links between psychology and anthropology before
suggesting that it is a valuable and necessary enterprise for psychologists to
take the world as it is lived in by persons in practice as a complex object of
research.
Psychology and anthropology
A qualitative approach has become more acceptable as a psychological
research method in the last decade or so but it is rare for psychologists to go
as far as I have gone in embracing an approach which is really the defining
method of anthropology. Whilst psychology’s history is very much tied to
the laboratory and experimental research, anthropology’s history is tied to
the (often rather exotic) field. Part of my work involves wondering about the
place of extensive field research in the discipline of psychology.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
The origins of ethnography
A defining event in the development of anthropology as a discipline, and
field research as its defining method was an expedition to the Torres Straits
in 1898. The expedition, known as the Cambridge University Expedition,
was led by Alfred Haddon. The Torres straits lie between the northern coast
of Australia and Papua New Guinea. The expedition lasted for 7 months and
participating in it was a psychologist, named W.H.R. Rivers, originally
trained as a physician with a particular interest in vision and specialising in
experimental psychology (which at the time was rather innovative). Despite
his bias towards the laboratory and experiments, once in the field it was
Rivers who developed the method of recording local genealogies which has
been described as the “major methodological innovation associated with the
Cambridge School” (Herle and Rouse 1998: 17). 14
It is ironic that this expedition was the beginnings of the ethnographic
method, even more so because a psychologist was foremost in its
development. The irony is doubly striking when one realises that as
anthropology was discovering its method, psychology ran back to the
laboratory, troubled by what Herle and Rouse (1998: 17) call the
“uncertainty over the reliability of the data produced in the field”. At the
time of the expedition over 100 years ago anthropology was a fledgling
discipline. The question presents itself as to whether, in the space created in
psychological and social science discourse in contemporary times, we
cannot talk about an emerging discipline of field-based psychology? As
practice research developed alongside early developments of Critical
Psychology perhaps field-based methods can be seen as a parallel
development to the ongoing working out of Critical Psychological concepts?
(See chapter 3).
Access
Reflections on gatekeeping
Access is a core issue in ethnographic research and many researchers have
put focus on the particular role of gatekeepers in facilitating access and
opening/limiting the extent of the researcher’s gaze, especially in the
context of so called sensitive sites (cf. Maher 1997; Martin 2001; Renzetti
and Lee 1993; Sheper-Hughes 1992; Utas 2003).
14 Rivers was not any old psychologist. He later became relatively well known for his work
with returning veterans from the first world war, as the “discoverer” of war trauma! (cf. Pat
Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, Viking, 1991).
40

Chapter 2 - Details of method
In what follows I describe in recipe-like terms the ways I acquired access,
first to Nigeria as a place to conduct research, then to the prison service, and
then to the training institutions, prisons and persons that were my real focus.
These layers of access are important to remember. It would be an
incomplete account if I jumped straight to an account of my entry into the
training schools or the prisons and forgot what it involved to access the
country and the service.
It is rare that the isolated researcher can access the research field without
help or hindrance from others. Relationships with others are an inherent part
of the researcher’s entry into the social field under investigation. Those who
mediate the entrance or refusal of entrance to the field are commonly known
as gatekeepers. Interwoven with tracing my access routes at the respective
layers I offer some reflections on gatekeeping and the process of being
engaged with gatekeepers. Generally speaking, gatekeeping would seem to
involve various tasks/responsibilities: 15
• Introducing researcher to particular people/institutions
• Vouching for the researcher/granting legitimacy
• Giving permission/refusing permission
• Granting access/refusing access/delimiting access
• Redesigning “object of study” (indirectly)
These activities revolve around the issue of opening or shutting doors (thus
“gatekeeping”) and – to stick with the metaphor – there are a variety of
types of doors and a diverse number of ways of opening and closing doors.
Some doors open automatically (some are video camera’ed), others swing in
your face, others you wave at frustratedly until they open. Some involve a
doorman who takes your luggage, others a back entrance where you are
likely to be mugged. Gatekeeping should not be conceived as merely the
granting and refusing of access. Rather one needs to bear in mind the
multiple ways of opening and closing doors and the multiple possible ways
of trying to get through a “kept” doorway. How one approaches doors is just
as important as those who guard them.
Accessing Nigeria
Engaging in ethnographic work in developing countries would seem to
involve gatekeepers to a particularly large extent. Indeed, even prior to
entering the field the scene is set and preparations made via gatekeepers.
15 Tomas Martin’s account of his process of gaining access to Tihar jail in New Delhi, India
has been a helpful point of reference (Martin 2001).
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
One has to first establish contact with relevant gatekeepers and this is not
always easy. I examined NGO publications and websites in my search for a
relevant institutional affiliation in Nigeria well aware, as Mats Utas has
subsequently described, of the limitations associations with local NGO’s
can have on research (Utas 2003). Ultimately, on reading an article
published in an international journal, by a Nigerian criminologist (Professor
Alemika of the University of Jos), on conditions in the Nigerian prisons, I
utilised an internet search engine and discovered a Nigerian NGO with
whom he was associated. I subsequently sent an email to the NGO asking
for his contact details. They replied within days with details about the
Professor, encouraging me to contact him and informing me that he was
fortuitously to be visiting Denmark two weeks from the date of receipt of
the email! A second fortuitous factor was that a student at RCT was working
at the Danish Centre for Human Rights who were hosting the professor and
she was responsible for welcoming him at the airport. I was therefore able to
meet Professor Alemika at the airport, take him to my office at the
Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims and describe my
project proposal to him, before giving him a written copy to study and
ushering him off to his real destination. I asked him to study the proposal
with regard to its feasibility and with a view to acting as field supervisor for
the project and writing a recommendation for the project’s funding
application. In addition I asked about the possibility of a formal affiliation
with his university in Nigeria. We arranged to meet again, this time at his
hotel a few days later. At this meeting he declared the project feasible,
agreed to supervise my fieldwork should the application be successful and
presented me with a recommendation. We discussed issues relating to
security, transport and accommodation.
From this point on the project appeared feasible. Professor Alemika was my
first gatekeeper and he opened a world of imagined possibilities and I
experienced a deep feeling of relief. Not that I was taking anything for
granted. The application was not even submitted. Some months later when
the application was approved I approached Professor Alemika more
formally requesting a letter of affiliation to the University of Jos. It was at
this point, from a distance, that some of the more difficult characteristics of
engaging with gatekeepers became clear. It was a period of uncertainty, of
waiting, of feeling that things were out of my control, a period of almost
nail-biting suspense. I experienced deep frustration and powerlessness
during the wait for a letter of affiliation to the University of Jos, necessary
for acquiring a visa (see appendix two for letter of acceptance). Despite
assurances – apparently sincere –that I would be met at the airport in Kano
and accommodation would be arranged, and promises that the application
42

Chapter 2 - Details of method
was on the vice chancellor’s desk waiting for a signature any day, I
remained in anxious suspense awaiting the actual arrival of a letter.
Part of the ambivalence about gatekeepers is that one is obliged to trust
people one does not necessarily know. During a long email silence from
Professor Alemika I attended a lecture at the Centre for Africa Studies in
Copenhagen by Professor Musa Gaiya on the rise of Pentecostalism in
Nigeria, purposely because he came from the same university and I hoped
he might be able to assist in some ways. Professer Gaiya was an inestimable
help during my initial settling-in. He met me at the airport in Kano and I
still recall his calling my name from the airport balcony as I walked across
the runway to the colonial style terminal building.
My interactions with both professors Alemika and Gaiya in Denmark were
marked by a peculiar characteristic. Both meetings were of short duration
and I was dependent on acquiring their co-operation and good will. That is,
from the start I voluntarily – through necessity - placed myself in their
hands. I was obliged to make important decisions on the basis of fleeting
introductions and brief meetings. There was a need to trust the process, not
least given the fact that even having accessed funds, accessed Nigeria and
with Alemika’s recommendation that the project was feasible, permission
from the prison authorities was still wanting. 16
Accessing the prison service
Another dubious thing about gatekeepers is that one never knows in advance
how fruitful their gatekeeping will be. There are no guarantees. For me
Alemika and Gaiya were gatekeepers in a positive sense. More often
gatekeepers are defined in terms of setting limits rather than creating
opportunities. They are those representatives of authorities who apparently
stand in the way of achieving one’s goal. Such a gatekeeper was the
Controller General of Prisons (CGP) whose permission I required to
conduct my research, at least in the manner that I had envisaged it at that
time. I had chosen not to contact the prison service in advance by mail,
reasoning that a negative response at a distance would be difficult to
renegotiate. Better to stand there in person. On departure I envisaged the
possibility of spending weeks/months badgering the prison authorities and
revising my proposals until they relented and opened their doors.
Fortunately the authorities were more open than I imagined when,
accompanied by Professor Alemika, I presented my project proposal to the
16 Whilst one is dependent on one’s gatekeepers in the first instance it is also incumbent
upon the researcher to make new first order connections independent of them.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
CGP at prison service HQ (see appendix three for letter of application), this
not before having paid courtesy calls to the deputy controller generals whom
Alemika knew well. (See Jefferson 2002 for a description and discussion of
this experience).
Letter of authority from the CGP (see appendix four)
Many people express surprise at the fact that I was granted access to the
training institutions and the prisons, even more so at the speed at which
access was given. How come the Nigerian Prisons Service were so open to
my proposal? I consider this issue below with reference to the experiences
of the renowned 18 th century British prison reformer, John Howard.
Radzinowicz (1978: 9) notes that “being the first in the field gives a certain
advantage to any researcher, and there is no doubt that Howard exploited it
to the full”. And indeed Howard’s story is remarkable given the free access
he acquired to so many prisons across the world. Radzinowicz puts forward
six reasons why access was not the problem for Howard that so many
researchers find today. He points to the lack of a central bureaucracy
governing prisons and enforcing any prohibitions. It was also the case that
prisons were less secluded, less peculiar, less set apart from society. The
boundaries were much more porous to traders, to visitors and in England
even to people coming to peer at those who were to be hanged the following
day. Fourthly, prison officials were less suspicious in those days, and
possibly unaware that there was anything to criticise about prison conditions
given the general conditions in society. Radzinowicz also points to
Howard’s charm and ingenuity describing how on being refused access to a
particular prison in Paris he referred to a regulation saying almsgivers were
to be allowed access. He then proceeded to distribute alms, and thus access
prisoners.
It is not my intention to compare myself to Howard, yet in many ways I
believe all six of these factors played a role in facilitating my access to the
Nigerian prisons. In the first place I was able to access the head of the
central bureaucracy and obtain permission to conduct my work and access
in the first instance the prison training establishments. Later I was to
44

Chapter 2 - Details of method
approach the deputy head of the organisation and acquire his permission to
enter the prisons. At that point though, I had already succeeded in visiting
two prisons, one via an informal contact to the officer in charge (OiC),
another with a church group attending a religious service. In relation to the
position of the prisons in relation to society I came at a fortuitous time
where the political climate had changed and a conscious decision had been
taken to make the prisons more permeable both in relation to the press and
to church and NGO groups. I was able to ride this wave of openness. At the
same time I do believe my project benefited from a certain naivety on the
part of at least some staff and the service as a whole. Lack of experience
with researchers meant that not only was I an unknown quantity but there
were no rules governing how people should deal with me. Thus I fell within
an open field where lack of rules created doubts about how staff should treat
me, which left the way open for me to utilise what charm I could muster to
pursue routes into the field that seemed to open up. It also seems true that
some staff did not recognise anything about their behaviour that could be
criticisable. I think about one particular member of staff whose behaviour
led me to reflect on the routine nature of mundane violence. He certainly did
not think that my presence should any way put a damper on his actions as he
repeatedly struck a prisoner (see chapter seven).
Accessing prisons and training schools
I have many notes recording entries and exits. The significance is not in
each and every one but in their very multiplicity. The fact that I entered and
re-entered my field of study on so many deeply ritualised and parallel ways
is relevant in the consideration of my material. The first entry was facilitated
by two letters one from Professor Alemika (a personal letter to the head of a
prison establishment, calling in a favour and requesting the officer to
introduce me to the Commandants of the staff college and the training
school), the other, a so-called official letter of authority (see appendix four)
instructing the Commandants of the training schools to grant me their
utmost co-operation, signed on behalf of the Controller General of Prisons,
the highest authority in NPS. Common to my repeated institutional entries
were three factors: the art of persuasion, the art of appearing nonthreatening
and the art of diffusing anxiety (both theirs and my own).
My later discussion of training school practices are based on visits to two
training schools, one in Enugu, in eastern Nigeria and one in Kaduna, in the
north. My experiences in Enugu serve to bring into vivid relief the positive
aspects of my work in Kaduna whilst illustrating that there are significant
pitfalls to be aware of when engaging in the kind of research I tried to
conduct. In Enugu I observed rather than participated. I was always one step
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
removed from everyday practice, an outsider. Partly this was due to lack of
opportunities and partly due to obstacles and resistance on the part of staff. I
was treated with a much greater degree of suspicion. Typical for my
experiences in Enugu was a conflict of interests: I felt torn between my own
interests and the interests of others that were thrust upon me. Whilst I chose
not to invest huge amounts of time there I was often made to feel as though
I was letting the institution down. The commandant for example had big
plans for me when I arrived, for example that I would, as I noted
…stay around, visit lots of prisons in the eastern states, spend time in the
school, make sure it features in my book, and recognise the huge
constraints on the service.
I felt severely constrained by the expectations and demands of those whom I
hoped would open doors for me. In Enugu, in contrast to Kaduna I was
constantly fighting for the kind of access I wanted. It was a struggle to
acquire the freedom to hang out. As a result it was the training school at
Kaduna that became the focus for my ethnographic participation. I turn now
to describe the form that participation took.
Participating in training school practice 17
Systematic observations of training school practices were rooted in a
participatory approach to the field. When I walked the fifty metres or so
from the adjacent prison staff barracks, where I was lodging, to the office of
the chief discipline officer (CDO) of the Prison Training School (PTS), it
was far from the first time I had been in the school grounds but on this
occasion my intentions were more systematic. I wanted to participate and
observe the everyday practice of training, whatever they were to be that
particular October day. As it happened trainees were to undergo weapons
training, that is training in how to dismantle, reassemble and handle a rifle
but the day began as usual with physical training.
Physical training
Escorted by the brother of the officer I stayed with in the staff barracks, who
was one of the physical training instructors I joined in the morning exercises
beginning at 06.50. I recall nervously waiting, not quite knowing how things
were to be organised. An instructor was assigned to each squad and I took
17 The following description and discussion relates to one week’s intensive participation in
training school practice backdropped by my residence in the prison staff barracks over a
longer period. The length of duration of fieldwork is not a guarantee of quality, reliability
or generalisability, in and of itself. Time spent in the field is necessary to aid interpretation
rather than to increase the number of events observed. Quality relates not to accumulation,
but to selection, plausibility and persuasiveness.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
my place in a group ready for an intense thirty minute work out. What was
the point of my participation in this morning exercise? How did it feel? I
remember feeling quite exhausted, surprised by how physically demanding
it was, newly aware of how physically fit these trainees must have become
after almost six months of this daily ritual. In addition I recall feeling
somewhat out of place and on display, not that anybody remarked on my
presence. So, I was simultaneously a part of (that is a participant in a shared
practice) and apart from the practice (that is I stood out from the others as a
non-member both due to my skin colour and the different affiliation I had to
NPS). I was not a real trainee. I was not obliged to be there; it was voluntary
and likely quite surprising and puzzling to the real trainees. For me it was
also a strategy. I wanted to be on display. I wanted to display myself as
involved and committed to their practices, willing to feel on my own body
what they felt on a daily basis on theirs, as a means both to feel what it felt
like and to demonstrate my presence. It was a way of pushing myself into
their practices with a view to being further invited into their worlds. It was a
search for acceptance.
Some days previous I had been in conversation with a trainee, whilst we
sheltered from torrential rain in the kiosk selling provisions on the training
school campus. He told me his friends had been asking where I was from,
demonstrating a curiosity about my presence spreading through the school. I
was able to ask him to spread the word that I would be joining in the
practices of the school during the next days. This was one example of the
informal and opportunistic ways in which I made myself known. By that
time I was already a familiar face to almost all trainees though they were for
the most part strangers to me. (On many occasions, for example when I was
out buying bottled water, I would be greeted on the street and engaged in
conversation with young men whom I would swear I had never met before.
This created a degree of embarrassment for me each time it happened but
those greeting me seemed unruffled. There was no way to avoid these
situations given that they were part of a uniformed group of 387 and I was
one, very visible, white researcher.) So, the morning exercise ritual was, for
me, a ritual in more than one way. It was a kind of self-constructed rite of
passage into the rest of the day’s practices, a way of granting me legitimacy
in their eyes. After the physical training, I retreated to the barracks for
breakfast and a shower before returning to the school where I headed
straight for the chief discipline officer’s (CDO’s) office.
Hanging out
The first thing the CDO did when I entered his office to begin my formal
work in the training school was to present me with the books of his office –
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
the CDO’s journal, the hand-over staff duty book, a book of the daily
reports of the chief warder and the daily attendance book – for my perusal.
It was a common practice for prison staff who received me to offer me
information or something tangible I could study. Undoubtedly, the idea that
I just wanted to hang out and see what was going on, was as strange for
them, as it was at the beginning for me. Having said that, I was pleased to
have tangible records and material, indicating procedures and framing
practice, put at my disposal and this material provides a valuable
supplement to my own observations. The books illustrate rules, procedures,
bureaucracy and the banality of training school practice. Often when I was
introduced to prison officers by their superiors and they were instructed to
co-operate, they would declare they would give me all the information I
required. I balked at the idea of being given information. My preference was
to just hang out, in search not of pre-processed and packaged information
but of emergent material. I began to distinguish between information,
material and data. I was interested in material that emerged and would
subsequently be transformed via its collection and arrangement into data for
analysis.
Access eased due to traversal of contexts
On the first morning of my systematic participation I had myself introduced
to the armed squad unit commander. Oddly enough he recognised me from a
party I had been at during the previous weekend. My traversal of action
contexts, seemed to ease my access into this new context. I sat myself down,
on the dusty parade ground floor on the fringes of one of the six groups. As
I sat on the ground I was greeted by a senior officer on visit from the staff
college, an officer whose home I had visited in Zaria.
Weapons training at prison training school
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
Accessing prison staff: “getting to know”
In chapter five I address the prison officer as person, indeed, in line with my
theoretical inclinations, as person-in-practice. How does one get at
personhood? How can research subjects, more crudely, research objects be
articulated as persons? This is a challenge to methodology (and also to
presentation/write up). In the first published piece based on my fieldwork in
Nigeria (Jefferson 2002) I included a verbatim account from my fieldnotes
describing my first ever entry into a Nigerian prison. Included in this
account was a description of a prison officer as aggressive and hostile,
feeding off and into rather conventional stereotypes of prison staff. As I
later got to know the officer better, that is, over time through repeated visits
to the prison I developed a personal relationship with him, I came to realise
that my attributions had been unfair. This is not to say that I had not
experienced aggressive posturing during my first meeting (I had also invited
them) but that my caricature failed to do him justice. There is much more to
this man's person than what I met on that first occasion. By my attribution I
had objectified him in a reductionistic manner without even attempting to
grasp his historical and contemporary complexity as a living person.
In the following I will show the way in which the relationship developed
and at the same time how my ways of describing the officer in turn
developed. I will demonstrate how attributions made by the researcher
(myself) depended not on the officer becoming different but on our
relationship changing. It can be argued that my negative perception and
description of the officer in the first instance were a product of the lack of a
relationship and my pre-understandings and tensions regarding the situation.
In the published article they also perform a rhetorical function, projecting an
image of the prison as impenetrable and an image of the researcher as
powerless. Simultaneously, I demonised an individual officer who with
hindsight was merely doing his job. Lacking a history and a relationship
with the man meant that I did not possess the necessary interpretive skills to
understand his posturing which I designated aggressive.
On a return visit to the prison I was led into the same office I had first
visited back in January to “the same old intimidating, resistant second-incommand
(2iC)”. Here again, in my notes I adopted a rhetorical strategy of
demonising the 2iC based on my original impression. It is only with
hindsight that I can see I was doing this. Indeed it is not that the 2iC lacked
the characteristics I observed and experienced. When I described him based
on my first experience of him to colleagues in Kaduna they instantly
recognised who I meant and laughed at my stereotypical description. It was
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
not that my descriptions were inaccurate. But my interpretations of them
and my lack of a relationship and shared history with the man meant that I
was not capable of contextualising what I saw. Just because I felt
intimidated does not mean that he is an intimidating man. Just because his
body language appeared aggressive does not mean he is an aggressive man.
His identity in practice is more than my experience of it and my accounts of
him ought to reflect this.
I was introduced and I referred to the earlier meeting and my novice status
and brought out my letter from the Controller General. This was studied
carefully and quietly by the 2iC before he instructed someone to put it in a
file. A research file was found where the letter was filed with a couple of
scribbled endorsements made on it. I noted that everything was being done
by the book, according to the rules and it struck me that the 2iC took his
responsibilities very seriously. I felt nervous and as we waited I tried to
make conversation, about the prison describing my work in Kaduna - a
strategy to give my current attempt extra legitimacy - but the 2iC
admonished me, advising me not to be in such a hurry to do my work. I felt
put in my place yet again and perhaps that is what this was about. As 2iC it
was he who had the authority over the prison. It was me who was imposing
on his time and his institution. I sat back and decided to wait him out. This
was the beginning of a shift in my attitude where I adopted a less pressing
style choosing rather to subjugate myself explicitly to his authority.
Gradually I was able to explain that my primary interests were in
interviewing the welfare officer and the head of operations and one other
man who was absent. (I should perhaps have realised that the head of
operations was a potentially sensitive person to want to interview given the
killings that had occurred in and around the prison during the riots of 2001
but my interest in him was not because of his position as head of operations
but because of his position as a graduate of the staff college.) As it was
recorded that I wanted to interview these three senior officers I remembered
I also wanted to interview junior staff who had recently graduated from the
training schools. The 2iC accused me of changing my mind since I had just
declared it was graduates of the staff college I was interested in. It clearly
appeared that I was trying to manipulate the situation but I apologised and
clarified my intention and pointed out that the letter grants me the right to
interview both types of trainees. I wrote in my notes that “the 2ic is very
cautious, very wary, very suspicious”. It is now my view that he was not so
much attempting to conceal anything as being extremely security conscious
and extremely respectful of the rules governing prison practice. His
sensitivities were no doubt heightened by the problems the prison had
experienced the year before. I also got the impression that he was covering
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
his back, making sure that anything he did in relation to me could not get
him into trouble. This may have had something to do with my original
clumsy attempt to access the prison. This was my second meeting. The third
occasion demonstrated further clumsiness on my part.
I walked authoritatively, this time, to the gate. Peering through the grill I
asked for the head of operations. I demanded to be let in but on turning I
saw a man I thought I recognised who was staring beckoningly at me. I
stared, and probably looked puzzled before asking the dumbest question in
the world as I walked towards the man whom I thought was an officer from
Kaduna - "What are you doing here?" In actual fact it was the 2iC. I hoped
he had not heard my mumbled question but I felt stupid and embarrassed. I
uttered a clumsy explanation, about not expecting to see him outside. I had
not actually been paying much attention to the people outside intent on
getting through the gate, though I had spotted quite a degree of activity -
armed squad members standing around, prisoners being escorted out.
Perhaps it was this activity that distracted me from the solitary man seated
on the low wall that rims the ramp up to the main gate. He was there, he told
me, to supervise the escort of some serious prisoners to court. As we sat
together watching proceedings his tone lightened somewhat and I sensed my
self relaxing and becoming more patient. We discussed the pros and cons of
having a black maria, as we observed the loading of a prisons ambulance for
the transport of prisoners to court. Part of the 2iC’s prickliness seems to
stem from a mixture of responsibility and fear that something might go
wrong during his watch.
When the 2iC asked whether I would rather see the yard first or interview
the warder I decided to take the yard first. He escorted me up to the officers
and as he indicated that a welfare officer I knew would escort me, he stated
“better a snake you know than an antelope you don't” showing that he too
had a sense of humour!
Some days later after conducting an interview I checked in with the 2iC and
explicitly drawing on my previous experience said to him "With your
permission I will return tomorrow". “You will be welcome” he declared "on
your own permission". I was struck by this alteration in tone, a turn around
clearly prompted by my own repositioning of myself in relation to him. It
was at this point that I began to realise the importance of the ongoing
relationship with regard to my perceptions of the officer and his perceptions
of me. We were engaged as persons in practice in ongoing participation with
one another within a very specific and quite sensitive institutional context.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
What was going on was that via repeated encounters, as our relationship
developed, understandings unfolded – not least about how to be together.
The crucial point here is that time is necessary. We cannot assume to know
much about persons or know persons well unless time is invested and one
gets to know them. Here I understand getting to know not as a meeting of
minds but a meeting of persons participating in shared practice. Who one
gets to know is dependent on a number of factors. One cannot take a random
sample of prison officers and decide unilaterally to get to know them.
Getting to know is a two way process. Given the constraints of time one
cannot expect to get to know well very many prison officers. It is a truism to
say that rapport is necessary and that rapport takes time to develop. Below I
explore further the notion of rapport and getting to know with reference to
the idea of “doing trust”.
Doing trust
I am dissatisfied with the idea of “building up trust”, of “developing
rapport”, even as a form of characterising the relationship I have described
above. Ideas about rapport are common in almost every account of
ethnographic research and equally widespread in accounts of psychotherapy
and counselling. These accounts tend to convey a sense that trust and
rapport are something essential to be achieved rather than contingent,
provisional and processual.
I contend that trust is not something that gradually emerges through contact
over time, in relation to research subjects. Rather trust is something we do.
Trust is a form of participation. To participate in an ethnographic way is to
enter into strange worlds, both geographically and interpersonally, where
one’s own boundaries are likely to be transgressed and one’s own integrity
is at risk. To engage in such a(n) (ad)venture, is, in my view, to do trust.
Mats Utas’ work (Utas 2003) with ex-combatant youth in Liberia is
exemplary in this respect as he describes how he ventured into relations
with the youth inhabiting “the Palace” – a damaged factory building close to
the beach in Monrovia where the ex-combatants squatted. Yet despite Utas’
success in engaging these youth to the extent that he is able to piece together
a sense of their lives as ex-combatants he fails to adequately conceptualise
his activity, retaining the traditional account of the importance of building
up trust. Utas, however, is modest enough and pragmatic enough to realise
that his “inclusion” was contingent and provisional. As he puts it, “the
fluidity of the people’s lives within my field site made my presence everquestioned
and indeed my exclusion was inevitable - it was just a matter of
how long I could hold on” (2003: 45).
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The notion of building up trust usually draws on an idea that trust is mutual,
at least the trust necessary for laying a foundation for the research. Subjects
need to trust the researcher; researchers need to trust subjects. Trust between
parties is seen as a precondition for the telling of true stories and the giving
of accurate accounts. Yet as Utas recounts even a close relationship does not
guarantee one is either given accurate accounts or not ripped off. The
relative positions of researcher and subject involve complex networks of
other positions, or positions in relation to others.
In my reading of doing trust the onus is on the researcher to do the trusting,
to put him or herself in the hands of the subjects. It is about entering places
where one is dependent on one’s subjects e.g. for security, for information,
for know how or know-who. 18 It is about releasing one’s own monopoly on
control of situations; in one sense about reversing the inequality implicit in
many ethnographic relationships. This is not to romanticise my approach
and say it does away with inbuilt inequalities. I am merely saying that
stepping, as it were, into the lion’s den, and exposing a certain degree of
vulnerability offsets these inequalities.
Of course, whilst I am focusing on researchers doing trust, they must at the
same time show themselves to be trustworthy. One is seeking to establish
trust by doing trust, though even the establishment of trust must be
understood as provisional and subject to change. To do trust is a risky
business. One makes oneself vulnerable. Mats Utas (2003: 69) describes
how he was taken hostage and how on another occasion he witnessed a
member of the Palace community being “caned mercilessly”. Tomas Martin
(2001) witnessed the beating of a prisoner during his study of Tihar Jail in
New Delhi. Such incidents challenge personal integrity and personal values
but these challenges go with the territory of doing trust. I suggest that we
have trust to the extent that we do trust. Doing trust is a way of
conceptualising ethnography in terms of ongoing participation.
Key informants
Over time I got to know one specific officer, whom I call Torhile, 19
particularly well. I characterised my relationship with him as one of
18 This is anthropologist Susan Whyte’s expression (personal conversation, Department
of Anthropology, Copenhagen University, 21 st November 2001).
19 The importance of particularity and specificity in relation to the occupations and places
of employment of prison staff makes the “protection” of research subjects difficult. Torhile
is undoubtedly recognisable by those persons who know him. Two factors mitigate against
this difficulty. Firstly I have submitted my writings on Torhile to him for his approval for
inclusion, and secondly I explicitly refer to the letter from the Controller General of Prisons
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
openness and trust but during a follow-up visit in January 2004 I was keen
to see how he perceived our relationship. He described a conversation he
had with a woman friend about me:
(there was) only one person that (I) really was talking to about personal
relations. I even told the person that you lived in our house and the person
said why? – it was a lady anyway – she says why? And I said “well I want
to believe (if) he lives in our place he will get some feeling of how a prison
officer lives, he wakes up, how he lives his life, what he does in private
time, what he does at work, how he lives with his family, how is his
relation between his family and the trainees… how it relates with the
training and how relates with my family”, being a researcher maybe you
want to marry all these things together and maybe put yourself in the
person of the prison officer. To be able to talk of prisons, to talk of prison
officers, you want to feel like one. And we have always enjoyed a very
cordial relationship, like there is an affinity, a personal binding us very
close together. And the woman said “well he must be a very exceptional
person, like coming to live in that your barracks,… coming to live in that
your barracks.” “He lived right there, right there with us”. She said “where
did you bath?” I said “in our bathroom of course”. “Where did he toilet?”
“In our toilet of course”. “What do he eat?” What we eat of course.” Wow,
she was kind of…
Torhile’s grasp of my intentions goes way beyond what I might have
expected and gives a clue as to the degree of affinity there was between us.
Without being explicit about it Torhile took on the role of a coresearcher/key
informant opening up his world to me, one could even say
teaching me his world. (This would imply an understanding of research as
learning in practice – cf. Lave 2001). On another occasion he told me how
one of his colleagues had read a draft manuscript of a conference
presentation I had made and remarked that I must have been through
training myself to have understood training as I had. This compliment I take
also as a sign of the affinity that I, through time developed, not only with
Torhile but with the practices within which he lived and constituted himself.
Another key contact whom I call Daniel was course co-ordinator at one of
the training schools. Doing trust was for me more difficult in this context.
Indeed my field and journal notes about my visits to this training school are
characterised by frustration, cynicism, even bitterness at times. The key
dynamic around which these emotions emerged was one of control/being
controlled. Notwithstanding these tensions, Daniel and I worked together. I
discussed with him issues of qualitative research, trying to coach him in my
intentions with the interviews and he conducted four interviews which
that instructed prison staff to grant me every co-operation in the pursuit of my research. In
that spirit Torhile simply obeyed orders.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
provide valuable material. He was a valued sparring partner during the
initial planning of my entry to the prisons. His knowledge of practice helped
me adjust my approach to the field and to potential interviewees. As well as
conducting four interviews, Daniel also listened to them and made notes of
these listenings. Despite my own ambivalence and the ongoing tension I
experienced and that I felt tainted my investment in this relationship there
was much I learned, primarily about the challenges that my approach to
research can present. And whilst I did personally feel constantly trapped and
constrained the work did get done. Material – including this material – was
gathered. As I put it elsewhere (Jefferson 2003), ethnography of the type I
have engaged in is a personal affair. The emotions I encountered are likely
inevitable in such a process.
Time in the field
Acquiring material of the kind I became interested in demands time. Two
periods of four months were set aside for the fieldwork. Some methods of
data collection involve only sporadic contact with the field of study and the
subjects in it. Others call for a kind of total immersion. Time spent in the
field is not a guarantee of the validity of understandings developed but it is a
precondition for getting the opportunity to develop any. It is not a case of
the longer the better, or the more observations made of a particular activity
the greater the validity. What time allows is for the researcher to get a grasp
of the local culture such that what is talked about and done can be
understood and the researcher can interact meaningfully in such contexts.
Time allows one to develop the interpretive tools necessary to make sense
of what is going on. I have already alluded to this in the section on “getting
to know”.
Conducting interviews across sites
Despite being foiled in my attempt to conduct interviews with the same
persons in three different stages of their training and post training I did not
lose sight of my focus on the ways in which prison staff experience these
sites in relation to one another. During my time living in the staff barracks I
conducted semi-structured interviews with trainees at the school and
subsequently during visits to three prisons I conducted interviews with
trainees who had recently been through training. These interviews helped
me in my ongoing familiarisation with practice and also provide concrete
and sometimes graphic examples of the ways in which prison staff handle
their lives, their training and their working practices as well as the ways in
which they construct prisoners and their jobs. These themes will be explored
further later in the dissertation. As well as the interview material I wrote
copious notes – journal notes and field notes. These two categories are
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
difficult to distinguish but journal notes are notes on the research process
and my own feelings about it whereas fieldnotes are more specific
recordings of actual practices I observed. Both sets of notes contained
descriptive and analytic elements, that I have utilised extensively in the
representation of the project evident in this dissertation. I turn now to
explore the significance for the project of the multiple sites occupied by the
research subjects.
The significance of traversing multiple sites and
contexts of action
In an article published following my second period of fieldwork (Jefferson
2003), (from which the following section is drawn) I introduced some of the
issues presented by the use of a field-based ethnographic method. I focussed
on the relationship between the researcher and the human subjects of the
research, particularly the way I was perceived by prison officers, and I
explored the significance of the researcher being perceived in multiple ways
by the subjects of the research.
A crucial issue for the field-based psychologist is how one finds or forms a
place in the field for oneself that will provide not only adequate but rich
material for later analysis. One way of doing this (only recently taken up
seriously) is to refuse to limit oneself to a single site but to work across the
various action contexts that research subjects occupy and move between in
an attempt to mirror the movements made by subjects as they live out the
mobile conditions of their lives (see Dreier 2003; Des Chene 1997; Marcus
1998). The action contexts of prison staff are semi porous. What goes on in
one action context has consequences for others and vice versa. Given the
concern of this research with learning, practices of training and agendas and
practices of change three institutional contexts presented themselves,
namely the training school, the prison and the home. And it was in terms of
these three contexts that I initially planned to address prison staff
understandings of practice. However I soon came to realise that institutional
contexts and action contexts are not synonymous. On the one hand actions
contexts are more micro (e.g. conversations between warders, disciplinary
procedures, specific sets of activities), yet on the other hand action contexts
are also beyond the scope of these obvious formal institutions (e.g. staff
club, church, friends houses etc.) As I passed between these differing
contexts often accompanying different members of prison staff I was
perceived in different ways, for example: prison officer from the west;
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
friend of Second in Command of the prison; spy; 20 member of prison staff
household/guest/“our white man”; 21 representative of Prisons HQ; human
rights advocate; and member of high table/honoured guest.
In contrast to an experimental context where the scientist by different means
attempts to manipulate or control for particular variables the field-based
researcher is put in the position of the “manipulated” as he or she engages in
changing relations across changing contexts. As a field-based researcher I
was not a constant nor consistent presence in the lives of the prison officers
I was interested in. Therefore it is not surprising that different prison
officers in different places and the same places had differing readings of
who I was and what I was doing.
When I began my research I was trapped by the idea that I should try to
present myself in a neutral homogenous manner. I chose a minimalistic,
formal introduction including merely my name and that I was a researcher
from Denmark (cf. Martin 2001). Only whilst in the field, did I come to
realise that such an image would be false and impossible to maintain over an
eight month period where I would participate in many different contexts
both formal and informal. In the early periods of my research the brevity
and clarity of my introductory statement failed to close down debate about
who I might be and what I was doing in Nigeria. This is partly due to the
fact that I rarely got to declare myself in those terms. Only on very few
occasions were formal introductions requested or given. Thus people
learned of me mostly by word of mouth or from others who took it upon
themselves to introduce me in their own terms. During the fieldwork I was
often frustrated at not being able to give my “true” account of myself at
least at the beginning of my interactions with individuals or groups of
people. At times I felt co-opted and misrepresented. And yet in retrospect it
was a good thing given that I was involved in a search not for homogenous
stereotypical images of prison staff but nuanced, rooted-in-practice portraits.
The researcher role is no less heterogeneous than the prison officers. To
some extent I was all the things that I was attributed as being, and by being
those things I also invoked multiple responses. My attempt to develop
20 The designation spy connects to a discourse relating to secrecy, discretion, betrayal,
suspicion and fear of exposure. This is a discourse common in such closed institutions and
sensitive sites. One way of alleviating the fear such an attribution invokes is to play the part
of spy as openly as possible Here, the notebook and pen are handy artefacts.
21 For over a month (in total) I shared their home, their food, and to some degree their
lives. I bought biscuits for their children, took younger sisters to the market, helped fetch
water from a well, studied in the local library with my host, attended their church and drank
local beer with friends and colleagues.
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
understandings from within and from below left me particularly vulnerable
to multiple attributions as did my attempt to participate across a multitude of
action contexts. I see this as a strength rather than a weakness. Despite the
researcher’s struggles to position him or herself, she or he is in turn
positioned by others whilst they are at the same time invited to adopt
positions of their own in relation to the researcher.
This presents the researcher with a wide variety of material adding to the
breadth and depth of the research. Clarity about the identity of the
researcher is neither necessary nor possible. Any attempt to limit oneself
into a reduced, construed identity is bound for failure.
During my time engaging with the Nigerian Prisons Service I participated in
a multitude of contexts including the classroom, the parade ground,
weapons training, early morning training runs, prison staff clubs, prison
reception boards etc.
Traversing multiple contexts of action - participating
in the early morning training run with 300+ trainees
The question is, what is the significance for research of the researcher
traversing multiple contexts and adopting multiple positions? Much research
on learning focuses on teaching and educational establishments mistakenly
equating teaching with learning. My attention was drawn to the necessity of
looking beyond single sites by Dreier’s work on psychotherapy where he
demonstrates that much more goes on for the client than is observable in the
therapy room. Therefore the therapy room is not a very sensible choice to
try to study changes in the client. Similarly, whilst it would be tempting
(and would follow a dominant tradition in research on learning), given my
interest in training and learning, to focus on the classroom, I would only
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
open myself up to very limited understandings of what it means to be
involved in training. Drawing then on a critical psychological practice
research tradition I chose not to focus primarily on curricula and classrooms
but on prison staff’s own ways of relating to the experience and structures
that simultaneously constrain and create opportunities for learning.
Recognising that prison staff traverse multiple contexts and adopt multiple
positions creates the need for researchers to do the same. 22
There are a number of benefits created by the willingness to follow the
movements of subjects across locations and action contexts. For the first it
increases access to the ways in which subjects live their lives. One is
granted opportunities to observe the way subjects behave in different
contexts for example the way they act in church juxtaposed with the way
they act in the prison yard. One also gets the chance to observe relationships
as they stretch across locations and action contexts, that is the same groups
of people interacting in different settings. In addition, crossing boundaries
of location makes oneself appear much more flexible and opens up the
possibilities for different kinds of interaction with subjects. Sharing a beer
(or three) in the staff club promotes a different way of being together and
facilitates the development of different relationships than merely
interviewing subjects in the (dis)comfort of their offices. I found car
journeys to be a particularly enriching context for accessing the everyday
lives of subjects. Part of this is that informal contact, just the act of being
together creates the opportunities for deepening understandings where more
aspects of everyday life become taken for granted together. As contact with
one’s subjects and potential subjects become more and more informal as
time and shared activities proceed, so the typical researcher-subject role is
reversed. Instead of having to hunt for informants the researcher becomes
sought after. Instead of forcing oneself upon others one becomes invited.
My participation in a variety of different activities, particularly in the
training schools, contributed to make me appear approachable and
accessible. It increased my visibility and with this increasing visibility
instead of actively seeking informants and information I was able to become
more and more passive as prison officers voluntarily presented me with
material as I participated in the daily activities of the barracks, the training
school and the prison.
22 In an important anthology problematising anthropologists’ notions of the field Mary Des
Chene (in Gupta and Ferguson 1997) advocates a position very close to the one I adopt here
where emphasis is put on recognising the mobility of research subjects and the significance
this has for their experience of their lives. George Marcus’ work also points in this direction
(1998).
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Chapter 2 - Details of method
Shared living
As indicated, I moved across and through different action contexts tracing
prison staff’s trajectories of participation across the different aspects of
training and prison practice, but perhaps most important for my work was
the time I spent living together with staff in the staff barracks. Shared living
became a research method. Shared living involves putting oneself into
practice, not one’s knowledge, expertise or techniques but one’s body and
soul. One sleeps, eats, washes, shits and shaves in close proximity with
one’s subjects. One loses one’s disguise, one’s distance. One becomes a
physically involved participant in a new set of relations and structures and
involved in a quite different type of knowledge production. One’s subject
position alters. One begins to see from a different perspective. One lives
rather than observes.
It is difficult to discern a split between my everyday life in the home of the
family I stayed with and my research. When was I not doing research? This
lack of a split is actually part and parcel of the ethnographic process. As
Mattingly (1998: 48) puts it I was interested in “…inserting myself in any
way possible into the lives of my subjects”. And it was through this
insertion, I believed, that understandings would emerge and develop. This is
not to glorify ethnography, nor to claim that it is merely a case of living
with one’s subjects and thus becoming au fait with their customs, traditions
and practices. I shared, or more accurately became a part of their lives. I was
an interjection, an interruption, an amusing interlude perhaps, maybe even a
status symbol at times and a source of income.
“The boy who asks too many questions gets told too many lies”
The context of shared living provides a space for a different form of
research strategy that I conceive of as pursuing emergent material. On one
occasion Torhile shared with me that his father used to tell him that “the boy
who asks too many questions gets told too many lies”. Retrospectively, this
motto frames my research practice. I did everything in my power to be open
to the otherness of prison staff, to observe and sometimes query what didn’t
make sense. But more often than not I chose silence over questions, hoping
that with time an understanding would emerge in its own right, an
explanation volunteered or an enculturation on my part that enabled me to
see differently. I adopted an open, watching, waiting strategy ready to grasp
opportunities and leap into situations that looked promising.
Shared living was not a romantic attempt to go native and it was not without
discipline. Ethnography as I am describing it demands stringent and
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disciplined note-taking, reflection and analysis and the steps the researcher
takes through the field are systematic and reasonable (for the most part). Yet
they are often not known or planned in advance. The researcher becomes an
opportunist, eagerly waiting, actively seeking chances to engage or listen.
Summary
This chapter proposes a field-based method as a necessary approach to the
study of persons in practice as they traverse multiple sites. Such a method
has been exemplified with reference to my own endeavours to access the
different levels of my research field. A significant point is that at all levels
the process is interpersonal and relational and puts particular demands on
the researcher, be it accessing a country, accessing a prison or accessing the
story of a person’s life. Others are always integrally involved with the
research process.
In chapter one I suggested that it is ethically imperative for psychologists to
conduct research in such sensitive sites as prisons in post-transition
countries. In this chapter I have introduced some of the challenges this
presents and showed how I approached the field. It is necessary to be open
and flexible as well as cautious and discrete. At the same time one cannot
avoid taking risks and making oneself vulnerable. The research field is filled
with unforeseen opportunities that must be grasped before they pass by.
This calls for a research design that can tolerate changes and research
funding that does not demand too rigid a plan.
At the same time as I have described my routes through the research field I
have provided hints as to how that field looks. We will first come back to
the prisons and the training schools and to prison officers in chapter four.
First I introduce the conceptual tools that are utilised in the analysis of the
empirical material.
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CHAPTER 3
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Chapter 3 - Conceptual tools
Framing the analysis of the empirical material
This chapter lays out the conceptual tools that frame the analysis of the
empirical material that I present in subsequent chapters.
The choice of conceptual tools is never accidental but dependent on the
complex interplay of empirical material available, questions to be answered
and overall purpose. Furthermore, conceptual tools should not be considered
static. Whilst serving the function of framing the analysis they are also open
to development through the meeting with the empirical material. Indeed
neither of the four factors – conceptual tools, empirical material, questions
to be answered, overall purpose - should be considered static if one looks at
the trajectory of the research project as a whole. Each changes, to varying
degrees, throughout the research process.
Conceptual tools do not give themselves. As I wrote above they are chosen.
There is a multiplicity of perspectives one could chose to illuminate
questions relating to Nigerian prison staff. Others might have chosen to
engage in a sociological analysis of their function in the prison bureaucracy,
or a psychodynamic analysis of their supposed inner conflicts or a narrative
analysis of the accounts they give of their lives. Each of these approaches,
as well as many others, could be illuminating. My own considered choices
reflect a claim that the chosen conceptual tools function to illuminate the
field in question in particularly useful and novel ways as well as feeding
back into contested though neglected discussions of psychological theory.
Psychology is an unusual discipline, arguably poorly theorised. Its position
as an applied science means it straddles the ravine of theory and practice
where the challenge to dominant (clinical) practice – suffering people –
often make the search for comprehensive theoretical frameworks seem
irrelevant. Given the multitude of different schools (of thought) in the
discipline one could be forgiven for characterising the discipline as deeply
divided. At the same time it is undeniable that a North American brand of
cognitive-behavioural psychology has established a certain hegemony,
revealed in standard introductory textbooks, that for the sake of convenience
I, like others, call mainstream psychology. 23 In the last decades a number of
critiques of the mainstream have emerged, notably the social
constructionists. These are important anti-mainstream contributions that
23 Coming from the UK where the hegemony of the mainstream is more prevalent and
challenges to it less tolerated I am particularly sensitive to its pretensions.
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Chapter 3 - Conceptual tools
head, however, in slightly different directions than those I pursue in this
dissertation.
My choice of conceptual tools also reflects my own personal trajectory, as
well as the oft-ignored vicissitudes of the research process – the availability
of texts, the “accidental” meeting of particular persons at particular
conferences and workshops, and the perhaps unintended, perhaps intended
influence of supervisors and reviewers etc.
The imprint on my project of two particular persons whom I did not
accidentally run into at workshops cannot be denied, namely Karl Marx and
Michel Foucault. My debt to Marx is mostly implicit and I draw on his work
not via primary sources as much as through others inspired by his work be
they critical psychologists (e.g. Dreier 2003; Huniche 2002; Mørck 2003
etc), critical criminologists (e.g. Carlen 1980, 2002; Cohen 1981; Hillyard et
al 2003; Ryan 1998, 2000; Sim 1991, 2004a, 2004b, Tombs and Whyte
2004; Walters 2003, etc.) or social practice theorists (e.g. Lave 2004). My
debt to Foucault is more explicit, partly because any study of prisons would
be incomplete without an acknowledgement of the importance of Foucault’s
revisionist history of punishment Discipline and Punish – the birth of the
prison. But Foucault is more important to my work than merely this. His
approach to the study of institutional and social phenomena and to the
history of thought and critical and effective histories (Dean 1994) serves as
an inspiration to my own representation of my project as already indicated
in chapter one.
The conceptual tools I introduce in this chapter draw however mostly on a
Marxist tradition in the form of a theory of social practice, accompanied by
concepts developed within a tradition of Critical Psychology.
Critical Psychology’s “science of the subject”
In subsequent chapters I will show how Nigerian prison officers act in and
are caught up in complex, intertwining practices in relation to their everyday
working lives, the institutions they are a part of and the societal structures
that frame their lives and the lives of their colleagues, families and not least
prisoners. Were it not for this latter specification of a particular group of
others that prison officers act in relation to, this statement could be
considered true of most people employed in institutions or for most workers,
to use a more explicitly Marxist expression.
My intention in this dissertation is to try to capture something of the
complexity of these connections and dynamics. To do this requires a set of
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conceptual tools that are not readily available in mainstream psychology
where persons are typically conceptualised as isolated individuals effected
by abstract variables that experimenters struggle to manipulate in a vain
search for causal relations, rather than as inherently relational and societal.
Just over 3 decades ago a counter psychology began to emerge, challenging
the mainstream thinking of the time. This counter psychology, that came to
be known as Critical Psychology, was posited as an alternative paradigm, as
an explicit challenge to the dominant discourse, a dominant discourse that
was seen as having little potential but to reproduce the hegemonising
dynamics of capitalist society (Tolman 1991; Maiers 1991). 24 Arguably the
same can be said of the contemporary mainstream paradigm of cognitive
behavioural psychology.
In a post-cold war world one hears less about capital and more about the
dominance of liberal governance a key element of which remains the
freedom of the market and of capital. In my view given the apolitical stance
and claim to neutrality of mainstream psychology there remains a need for a
counter psychology that seeks to challenge dominating tendencies both
politically, social scientifically and methodologically. Critical Psychology,
as it was originally developed, was not anti-psychology but rather, in an
attempt to rescue psychology from itself, counter-psychology. By arguing
for partisanship (pro-subjects) and against any idea of a neutral scientific
practice Critical Psychology attempted to formulate a theory that put
subjects at the centre rather than isolating them and talking about them in
only abstract terms. For psychology to be relevant for human subjects, it
was argued, those subjects need to be central to psychology not as objects to
be controlled, managed, diagnosed and evaluated but as persons conducting
lives.
Critical Psychology did not buy the critique of psychology, also prevalent at
the time, that argued that psychology as science could only ever be in the
service of the powerful, what in a later guise came to be known as the
repressive hypothesis (cf. Jefferson 2003). Rather Critical Psychology
reserved a role for psychology as an emancipatory, partisan endeavour. 25 It
24 Unfortunately much of the literature of Critical Psychology, especially primary
sources, is not available in English, being written either in German or Danish. The text I
draw on explicitly in this section is a volume of translated key texts edited by Tolman and
Meiers that became available in 1991
25 See Tolman (in Tolman and Maiers 1991: 5): “Critical psychology openly embraces a
kind of partisanship (parteilichkeit) that has traditionally been considered inappropriate in
science… This partisanship can be expressed in class terms: It takes the side of the working
classes. But more immediately important it takes the side of the individual human subject”.
See also Joe Sim’s chapter (in Tombs and Whyte 2004) Whose side are we not on?
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Chapter 3 - Conceptual tools
would be a digression to enter into the complex philosophical and societaltheoretical
foundations of Critical Psychology. Suffice to say that dialectical
materialism formed the philosophical backbone and historical materialism
the societal-theoretical framework. The achievements of the first decades of
Critical Psychology were in the realm of what they called the categorial,
that is the development of historically derived basic concepts about what it
means to be human. The later generation concepts, developed by Dreier
(e.g. 2003) that I introduce later, build on these conceptualisations.
Human action potence
One particularly useful foundational concept underlying the analytic work
of this dissertation is that of human action potence. Action potency alludes
to the fact that humans, in order to meet basic needs, are always already in
interactive relations with the world, that frames the realm of possibilities
and at the same time invites humans to expand their possibilities. Action
potency as concept includes both the feelings the subject has about the
possibilities at their disposal and the concrete reality of those possibilities.
One can speak of two forms of action potency, a restrictive and a
generalising. The restrictive form is a form which involves the subject
making the most of the possibilities presented without attempting to go
beyond them, 26 a kind of inherently conservative stance given the fact that
human beings are considered to be inherently societal (that is not just social
or relational but constituted not just in but by society which is the mediator
between person and the material world (cf. Tolman 1991: 14). The
generalising form of action potency is a form that looks to expand the
horizon of possibilities to break through the apparent determinedness of
one’s world and increase the realm of possibilities at one’s disposal.
Despite Maier’s (1991: 45) proviso that “the concepts of “generalized” and
“restrictive” action potence do not refer to any specific situation, but rather
to the universal conflict involved in the pursuit of one’s own interests,
having to do with the decision whether to reconcile oneself to what is given
or to make a move toward extending one’s own control”, this way of
making subjects’ possibilities for action central has significant analytic
power when one thinks about the complex relations in which prison staff are
caught up that I referred to above. Later, I discuss the extraordinary power
of the paramilitary structure of the prison service to infuse the lives of
prison staff undergoing training, by way of discipline. I also illustrate how
26 Mørck (2003) presents a nice example of this – the carpenter apprentice who puts up with
racist remarks in order to achieve his educational goals, yet at the same time, by refusing to
challenge the subordinate position he is put in, supports his own domination and closes
down potential for expanding other perhaps more fundamental possibilities.
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these arrangements of the prison service determine the possibilities of prison
staff to a very high degree. Nevertheless, some staff at least are able to
expand the possibilities available to them even within the apparently closed
down restrictive system. I will ask the questions: to what extent and under
what conditions are prison staff able to extend their possibilities and expand
their subjective frameworks of action? How do they both reproduce and go
beyond the conditions of their existence? And I will conduct this discussion
in relation to practices and processes of change.
To summarise, the “science of the subject” refuses to treat subjects in
isolation from their action contexts, the opportunities and limitations they
have to act within these contexts and the structures that link these contexts
of action together. 27 Tolman offers a useful summary of the purpose of the
conceptual apparatus developed by the Critical Psychologists:
They are intended as tools for analysing the complexities of our situations
in the world, to see more clearly the opportunities and restrictions in our
lives and the possible ways of consciously relating to them. They are there
to help us better understand the mediated nature of our existence. (in
Tolman and Maiers 1991: 19)
I return to more recently developed concepts rooted in the Critical
Psychology tradition later in this chapter, namely action contexts,
trajectories of participation, position, location and stance. Later, in the
presentation of the ethnographic empirical material, I build on these
conceptual developments in an attempt to cast light on the mediated nature
of the everyday ongoing conduct and practices of Nigerian prison officers.
Developing theory and practice?
As I have described above the goal of Critical Psychology was to develop a
specifically Marxist theoretical apparatus to combat dominant streams in
psychology. Associated with these developments was a methodological
development of the action research tradition under the name practice
research. Indeed the science of the subject sees itself as a theoretical and
practical endeavour - theory and practice are not merely complimentary but
27 There are some points of contact between critical psychology and the post-Cartesian,
anti-reductionist work that generally goes by the name social constructionism or
post/modernist psychology. Critical Psychologists, and I, would argue however that the turn
to language has had over-inflated influence at the expense of attention to practice. Bayer
and Shotter’s (1998) edited volume would seek to redress this balance addressing as its subtitle
suggest bodies, technologies and practices. The critical psychology coming out of the
UK rooted as it has been in “discourse units” (e.g. Loughborough and Bolton), shares a
focus on discourse parallel, though more Foucault inspired, to the social constructionists.
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inconceivable without the other. Practice research has subsequently
developed in different directions depending on the field under study. A
narrow definition includes research conducted with the explicit intention of
bringing about change in the object under study. A broader definition,
within which my project falls, is that practice research aims to develop
understandings that can open possibilities for transformation. 28 Given the
colonial history of Nigerian prisons I am keen not to be seen as another
“colonial master” coming in with advice and expertise to develop their
practice. Nevertheless, the desire to contribute to more than just abstract
academic debates, indeed to, in some small way, open up transformative
spaces does fuel this project.
My concern is with connections and relations within a complex field.
Following the tradition of Critical Psychology/practice research I refuse to
limit my study to a single object. As Dreier (forthcoming) studies clients
and therapists, Borg (2003) studies persons with apoplexy and occupational
therapists, Huniche (2002) studies persons in families with Huntingtons
Disease and the medical practices offered to them and Mørck (2003) studies
the transgressive learning of young ethnic minority men and the innovative
framework provided for this by involved actors and the institutional
practices of “wild learning” so I study not only prison staff but also the
institutions they participate in, the interventions imposed on them and the
agencies trying to change them. It should be emphasised that the above
named researchers do not study the two sides of the equation as if they were
distinct. The point is to examine them in the context of the relations and
structures that contribute to their ongoing practice and within which subjects
act and are produced. For my purposes this means situating persons and
interventions within the institutional (and global) structures they are
implicated in. An additional important point is to recognise that subjects are
caught up in a multiplicity of arrangements of practice, and a variety of
types of relations. Practice research as conducted by Critical Psychologists
takes this multiplicity seriously and tries to attempt to ascertain
understandings of subjects across contexts of both time and place.
What can this research project offer the Critical Psychological project?
Whilst the idea of “theory development” can sound rather a grand ambition,
it is qualified in Critical Psychology via the focus on practice, and changing
practice and on subjects’ own perspectives on their lives – not as
perspectives to be reified in their own right as ultimate truths, but as
28 These approaches bear resemblances to the work of Engeström on developing work
practices through research (e.g. Engeström, in Chaiklin and Lave 1993).
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expressions, stances and positions in relation to the action possibilities of
subjects living their lives. Theory development for me means contributing to
understanding how the world hangs together and how subjects participate in
relations embedded in it. I have already suggested the analytic power
Critical Psychology concepts may have to illuminate my field of enquiry. It
is also my hope that the empirical material I present will be able to offer
something to the concepts and tradition whether as support, development or
challenge.
Having introduced Critical Psychology, one of the key sources for the
conceptual tools I employ, I turn now to the ongoing work of Jean Lave
towards a theory of social practice and attempt to ground my analytic
strategies in that work.
Themes for a theory of social practice: learning,
everyday life and change
In terms of theoretical grounding in addition to Critical Psychology I have
found the ongoing work of Jean Lave concretely and specifically relevant
for this project. Jean Lave is working to develop a theory of social practice
via a systematic reading of Marx through the lens of praxis. This is just one
version of social practice theory. It is beyond the scope of the present study
to engage in an in-depth discussion of the relative merits of the different
approaches to social practice. What I would like to do is emphasise in what
ways Lave’s theoretical outlook is particularly relevant to my study and
what my empirical ethnographic material might be able to offer to her
ongoing conceptual work.
A key reason that Lave’s approach is relevant to my project is her explicit
concern to address issues of learning, everyday life and change via a focus
on their integral relations and connections. Why are these issues of so much
importance? Why are learning, everyday life and change relevant themes to
conceptualise with regard to a study of prison staff practices of training and
work and the interventions designed to change them? I consider these in
turn.
Learning
Even through a traditional theoretical lens the theme of learning becomes
relevant by virtue of one of my sites of focus being training schools and
another key focus being externally sponsored training workshops.
Traditionally such sites are conceptualised as sites of learning, places where
learning is supposed to, by definition and design, take place, indeed in some
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conceptualisations apparently the only place. Where my own position
diverges from traditional understandings is that I do not limit my study or
understanding of learning to sites of education. Indeed I believe limiting the
study of learning to sites of education unavoidably reproduces views of
learning as intimately tied to such institutional contexts, thus legitimating
the functions of such institutions. What sites are then implicated? Where
else does learning take place and what do I mean exactly by learning? It will
emerge that for prison staff learning occurs across everyday life and is as
much incidental as intended. 29 Following Lave, and Dreier I examine
learning in terms of the way persons change their modes of participating in
practice.
Confronting complex social practices and the active participation of persons
in them a social practice approach implies coming at learning from the
perspective of learners. Coming at learning from the perspective of learners
also involves recognising the way learners are framed by ongoing structures
and dynamics of practice. This does not imply a focus on how training
works or what effects it has but shifts the focus from the institution to the
person engaged in the activities of that institution. This is the same as the
move made by the early Critical Psychologists, toward putting acting
subjects at the centre of the analysis. Learning is done, not done to. Theories
of learning which focus on teaching and teachers do so because they assume
that when words are spoken, knowledge is conveyed, absorbed and later
utilised. A focus on practice and context reduces the usually dominant place
language and knowledge have in theorising about learning.
If we want a conception of learning that includes the way it is part of
“changing activity and changing circumstances” (Lave 2004a: 25) Lave
argues that it is no good being satisfied with contemporary and common
theories that see learning merely as social reproduction of knowledge.
Learning deserves to occupy a place in the relationship between everyday
life and social change. Lave advocates seeing learning as “a relational part
of processes of participation in everyday life” (2004a: 25) and articulates
three key assumptions about learning: learning is part of social life; learning
is a relational concept; learning is part of a theory of praxis with particular
relevance to conceptions of social change. Rather than a static view of
everyday life and a reduction of learning to teaching situations it is
necessary to reframe learning in terms of everyday complexities and with an
eye on its part in change processes. Dreier (in Nielsen and Kvale 1999;
29 Dreier (in Nielsen and Kvale 1999) following Holzkamp distinguishes between intended
and incidental learning, where incidental learning is learning that comes about in situations
where it was not the primary aim of the activity. (See also Mørck 2003: 21).
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Dreier 2001) introduces three types of learning worth paying attention to
given a focus on changing social practice. Here a distinction is made
between learning that lays a foundation for participation in social practice,
learning involved with keeping up with changes in the practices subjects
participate in and learning engaged in when subjects contribute to changing
the practices they participate in. Another way to express these different
types of learning is learning as a condition for be(com)ing, learning as a
dimension of ongoing be(com)ing and learning as a self-conscious, critical
and reflexive practice. In chapters nine and eleven I return to these themes
when analysing and reflecting upon an example of human rights training.
Everyday life
I am keen to avoid conceptualising everyday life as a remnant, as a left over,
in contrast to that which is really important. Everyday life should not be
seen as a category or a segment of life, that is, as something other than or of
less interest than real life. Neither is the concept very useful if it means the
whole of life. Everyday life first came into focus for me as I sought ways of
thinking about prison staff’s lives that move beyond the realm of work but
do not contribute to a false division between work and the rest of life. Work
is part of the everyday life of the prison officer, as is family life, home life,
time spent waiting, time spent praying or bathing etc. The changing ways
prison officers participate across these sites of everyday life is what is of
interest as well as the changing understandings that prison staff develop as
they move through and across sites and through and across time. Everyday
life is a way of thinking about a specified, lived set of arranged practices
that prison staff constitute by virtue of living them.
Change
I referred above to the changing ways in which prison officers participate in
social practice. Change is implicated in any study of social practice for
social practices are not static but dynamic. Like learning, change is an
unavoidable theme in my project because prison officers are explicit targets
of change. The training they are given is designed to change them, even as
the structures of training undergo change and persons change by virtue of
living their lives. They are supposed to change. They are supposed to learn.
An important question is to what degree are they perceived as responsible
for their own change? Everyday life is specifically implicated in the basic
training where the six-month training is residential and in many ways
resembles the regime of a Goffmanesque total institution. Everyday life is
circumscribed in specific ways as a means toward change, as a means
toward learning. I would like now to introduce Lave’s take on a theory of
social practice.
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A theory of changing practice must start off with an exploration of the
complex multi-sided character of the everyday changing participation of
participants in practice. (Lave 2004a: 34)
Lave’s attempt to formulate a comprehensive theory of social practice starts
from the point of view that social life can be conceptualised as praxis. The
unit of analysis is not the objective social structures or the conditions of
subjective experience but the way relations of structure and subjectivity are
generated together in practice, and thus can be analytically derived by
examining and analysing their generation in social practice (cf. Lave 2004a:
4). Focusing on the production of social life, its generation in practice
involves “downplaying or taking a critical stance towards the
epistemological obsessions of much post Cartesian analytic philosophy”
(2004a: 2). Instead action is given primacy over thought, ontology before
epistemology.
History in person
History is made, generated, produced in practice. History is also made in
persons in practice. At least this is the claim of Holland and Lave’s (2001)
introductory chapter to History in Person, a collection of ethnographic
studies pursuing the complex dialogical formation of subjectivities in
contexts of local and enduring struggle. Attempting as it does to lay an
overall framework for making sense of nine disparate though related
ethnographies the chapter is inevitably complex. I lack the space to do it
justice by means of its own terms. Fortunately, the chapter’s Bakhtinian
flavour, permits me to appropriate the text, to see it as addressing me and
answering me in diverse and particular ways. I will attempt to articulate
what is meant by history in person and enduring struggle whilst at the same
time, by referring to Nigerian prison staff and the structures of prison work
in Nigeria, suggesting what the implications of such concepts are for writing
an ethnography of prison practices and the formation of prison officer
subjectivities. One of Holland and Lave’s foundational claims is that
persons are always in process; we are never complete; we are always on our
way to becoming. Given my focus on agendas for change and prison
officers as targets for change, and my desire to acknowledge the
possibilities prison staff take advantage of to form themselves at the same
time as they are formed – both in training and work contexts – the concepts
put forward by Holland and Lave seem worth pursuing. They have both
theoretical and methodological implications.
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History in person, meaning “a constellation of relations between subjects’
intimate self-making and their participation in contentious local practice”
(Holland and Lave 2001: 6), encapsulates the way persons live and make
their own histories (collectively) as they participate in practice and in
relations of struggle. Persons do not participate alone in struggles, and selfformation
is not seen as an isolated activity. Rather, argue Holland and
Lave, selves are authored always in relation to others, by invoking,
identifying with and resisting others:
Subjectivities and their more objectified components, identities, are formed
in practice through the often collective work of evoking, improvising,
appropriating, and refusing participation in practices that position self and
other. (2001: 29)
Enduring struggles
At the same time as persons make history they are made in history caught
up in relations of structure and ongoing enduring struggles that mould and
form them. Persons are products and producers:
Like Marx… I believe that we make our own history… but not exactly as
we might wish or intend. I take social existence to be in part
historically/spatially determined and in part made by people in their
interrelations and their interrelated struggles in the world. (Lave 2004a: 13)
Some of the examples of struggle in the volume are vivid: women IRA
prisoners being objectified yet at the same time radicalised by strip
searching procedures for example. The authors are concerned with the ways
in which enduring struggles are “locally realised, how they shape
subjectivities and how they are shaped in practice” (Holland and Lave 2001:
6).
What are the enduring struggles that manifest themselves locally in the lives
of prison officers made into targets for intervention? In chapter eleven I
examine the way human rights training is an example of a global(ising)
discourse that seeks to form prison staff practices and mould prison staff in
particular ways. I also examine how they respond to this form of
intervention in ways which are fundamentally tied up with little understood
– by intervening agencies – local, institutionalised, yet also personalised
understandings of practice. I will also suggest that intervention strategies
form parts of another enduring struggle - that between North and South. The
North – South struggle is relevant to the extent that prison reform
interventions have become part and parcel of programmes of wholesale
societal reconstruction demanded by the North and evaluated in terms of
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good governance, improved human rights, better access to justice, increased
democratisation etc. The interventions can be seen as interventions aimed at
correcting a deviant state (Jefferson, under review).
A specific aspect of the enduring struggles impinging on the lives and
contentious practices, and (trans)forming subjectivities of Nigerian prison
staff and Nigerians in general are the related practices of development,
politics and violence as well as issues relating to poverty, inequality, the
colonial legacy etc. Another concrete, material struggle, locally realised in
the everyday lives of prison staff, is the struggle to be paid salaries on time.
This problem can be related to the collapsing state and raises significant
issues in relation to interventions that seem to see behaviour as divorced
from status as paid worker. It is rare at least that staff wages become a
theme of external interventions.
Like the authors of History in Person my main emphasis is not on enduring
struggles but on the way subjectivities are formed, the way characters are
moulded, the ways prison officers participate in practice. This weighting of
the dynamic between enduring struggles and history in person is an attempt
to redress a balance in theorising recognising as Holland and Lave
succinctly put it that, although many have tried,
we cannot understand enduring struggles as crucibles of identities unless
our accounts encompass the working creativity of historically produced
agents and the interconnected differences among their interests, points of
view, and ways of participating in the production of ongoing struggles.
(2001: 3)
Contentious local practice
In common with Lave’s already mentioned position a key facet of the
approach to history in person is that enduring struggles and history in person
do not relate directly with one another but are mediated via local
contentious practice. It is in practice that we find the lived working out of
the production of the relations between enduring struggle and history in
person.
Holland and Lave write that:
Dialogically constituted identities are always re-forming somewhere
between positions institutionalised on social terrain and their habitation as
it is made meaningful in intimate terms. (2001: 29)
Nigerian prison officers’ practices are a particularly potent site for the
examination of these dynamics of persons habituating an institutional
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terrain. Prison officers are caught in a wide range of practices many of
which are explicitly highly institutionalised, and highly directed, where
officers’ own subjectivity is downplayed but where meaning making is
nevertheless ongoing. Officers’ lives offer an opportunity to examine the
interplay between a relatively extreme form of external control and ongoing
practices of meaning making. This will not be about accounting for
subjectivity in terms of structure and structure in terms of subjectivity but
about examining the production of relations of subjectivity AND structure
in social practice. This is a rather elusive idea and strategy that the analysis
in subsequent chapters will attempt to illustrate.
Prison staff can in these terms be conceived of as caught up in, and active
in, contentious local practices. The way staff cope with and handle these
practices, the way they participate in practice and the way practice impinges
on their lives as subjects is highly significant. Prison practices are
contentious in a number of ways. For one they are contentious in that they
are challenged by human rights groups both nationally and internationally.
For another they are contentious in that prison work represents a conflict
between citizen and state and is the state’s response to that conflict. It is
possible to conceptualise prison services as seats of struggle par excellence,
representing as they do the punitive apparatus of the state in dealing with its
unruly citizens. In this sense individual prison staff members represent a
position in a conflict. Prison complexes can be designated crucibles of
contention.
I have attempted to show how Holland and Lave’s approach helps direct
attention to particular facets of a social field of enquiry, in this case to
prison officers’ participation in contentious practices against a backdrop of
ongoing and enduring struggles both at the level of everyday survival and at
a global level. Their overarching conceptual and methodological framework
informs and enriches the analyses I will engage in as I present empirical
material in subsequent chapters, even as I have begun to give some clues
about the field here.
Returning to Critical Psychology
The “science of the subject” with its refusal to see individuals as
autonomous actors, or as determined by social structure resonates with
Holland and Lave’s approach to “history in person”. In the following
section I will elaborate on some specific key concepts intended to further
develop the science of the subject.
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Action contexts and trajectories of participation
The concept action context is a qualification of the more general context,
making explicit that subjects act in multiple contexts. Contexts are of little
interest outside of the way they are acted upon and frame action, and the
way they are reproduced and changed through the participation of subjects
in them. Action contexts may be more or less institutionalised and more or
less temporary. Action contexts are local and situated but also connected to
other action contexts with goals, means and conditions held in common with
others. They are always “part of more encompassing structures of social
practice” (Dreier 2003 orig. 1997: 19) that in turn can be defined in terms of
“a set of interrelated and diverse, local social contexts of action” (2003: 98).
I return to a discussion of context in a section on persons-in-practice later.
The idea of trajectories of participation, is a concept that indicates the
movement of subjects through time and space. Here there are two aspects
that need to be unfolded. Firstly, participation refers to the fact that subjects
are always already involved and engaged in relations and arrangements of
situated social practice. These engagements are “partial and particular”
(Dreier 2003: 97) aspects of social practice and participation always implies
either reproducing or going beyond the existing limits of possibility implied
by the social practice. It is this dynamic that captures my interest in relation
to the participation of prison officers in their ongoing practices of training,
work and everyday life. Secondly, the involvement and engagement of
subjects in practice does not merely follow a time line or reflect a narrative.
Participation can best be understood as forming a trajectory, not only a
trajectory through time but also a trajectory across space or across contexts
of action. A concept of trajectory is necessary when social structures of
practice are understood as consisting of a set of linked yet separate contexts
that persons move into and across. In chapter two I have already implicitly
drawn on these concepts, with regard to my own traversal of action contexts
as I traced the paths of my research subjects. That is these concepts inform
my method as well as my analysis.
As a science of the subject, Critical Psychology and Dreier’s later
developments imply a particular understanding of the subject. Three facets
of subjectivity, in addition to the above aspects, are important namely
location, position and stance.
Location
Dreier’s emphasis on the importance of location is a response to theories of
personhood that seem to posit a freefloating individual, an individual
without anchoring in a specified location. It is necessary to recognise the
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ways in which persons are anchored, slip anchor and re-anchor in new
locations (as well as the constellation of movements between locations)
because these changing locations make a difference to how persons make
sense of their world, and their participation in that world. The concept
invokes the situatedness of subjects in ongoing practice and the importance
of that situatedness for subjects. Where we are effects our actions, our ways
of participating in particular practices. Our position in relation to others is
also effected by our changing locations and our situatedness. Location then,
is about the local emplacement of subjects. It is not though merely an
alternative to place. Dreier’s innovation is to insist that location (and
position and stance) are aspects of subjectivity. They are not external to the
subject, something the subject is dropped into, but rather, on the basis of
persons existing in social practices as participants, they are aspects of their
subjectivity. Location is significant for how persons are who they are.
Position
Dreier’s concept of position refers to social status, but not a status one
carries with one across contexts but a status that is determined by the
relations one is positioned in, in concrete locations. In some locations, for
example, one knows in advance that one will enter in a subordinate position
to others. In other locations one occupies different positions, even changing
positions. This is a relational understanding of position. Positions alter in
relation to location not because of the inbuilt qualities of locations but
because of who we meet in specific locations. Position has particular
significance for Nigerian prison staff given the paramilitary, hierarchised
social structures of order in which their working lives – if not more – are
conducted. But the point is position has significance for us all.
On complexity and personal stances
Subjects or persons in practice are complex. Any claim otherwise is
chimerical. Dreier characterises subjects as “differentiated, varied, full of
ruptures, conflicts, and contradictions” (Dreier 2003: 25). It is this
complexity that the concepts of Critical Psychology are devised to help us
understand. It is also this complexity that subjects themselves must handle
as they participate in and conduct their everyday lives:
This (complexity – AMJ) is what any subject must try to hold on to, in
ways that are suitable for sustaining or extending his or her grip on his or
her complex and diverse existence. (ibid.: 25)
Subjects orient themselves, in relation to their own location and position and
in relation to the complexity of their ongoing participation in practice. This
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orientation involves the active adoption, elaboration and composition of
standpoints or personal stances that help to direct action in ways that
coherently connect, and configure diverse ways of participating in changing
contexts at different times (paraphrasing Dreier 2003: 25). Stances are about
ensuring an element of stability. They are part of the subjective aspect of
context. Stances are carried by persons across locations and through
positions. Stances are adopted, construed and can alter. Whilst persons
might participate differently across locations as they find themselves in
different social constellations and positions, stances represent an explicit
orientation to these positions and locations and the possibilities opened up
by them. Stances are expressions of persons’ agency. They involve an active
position taking in relation to the issues and relations persons are confronted
by in their everyday lives. Adopting a stance contributes to establishing
ones position, though position is always established by virtue of ones
relations to others. Stances may vary in tact with changing locations,
relations and positions and across contexts of action yet at the same time
they are a means by which a particular person’s social practice is directed
across locations. Articulations of a stance cannot be taken at face value as
expressions of an everlasting standpoint. Rather stances are expressions of a
person’s ongoing trajectory and his/her relation to particular concerns,
specific locations and participation in practice. 30
These articulations of concepts make dense and rather convoluted reading. I
want to complicate matters further by introducing the concept persons-inpractice.
Persons-in-practice: context as an aspect of subjectivity
For me, the above linked concepts are part of a project of emphasising that
persons must always be understood in context. Let me use the expression
“deep context” to further underline that what I imply here is not a token
gesture in the direction of the importance of persons’ surroundings or
environment for understanding them, only to continue examining persons as
if they were isolated, autonomous individuals somehow determined by those
surroundings. Rather, I am arguing for a notion of context that is substantial
and specified, and integral to persons in practice. The concepts location,
position and stance contribute to this project of specifying deep context in
30 Dreier describes identity in terms of what one stands for and where one belongs. “By
relating these various participations, concerns and stances persons gradually configure a
particular subjective composition to the way they feel located in the world (and traverse
that world… AMJ)” (Dreier 2003: 120).
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terms of the subject. The concept of stance, in particular, involves
recognising that persons carry context with them. Participation in practice is
not about abstract individuals being placed in a container-like environment.
Contexts as practice are created by persons adopting and articulating stances
in relation to others in particular places. It should be noted that as location,
position and personal stance are aspects of subjectivity so is context. One
does not just enter a context or get dropped in one. Persons are to a degree
their own (and others’) context even as they are contextualised as they
participate in ongoing practice. The concept of persons-in-practice as an
articulation of this sense of deep context will run like a thread throughout
this dissertation. Similarly the other concepts I have introduced are utilised
in the analysis of the ethnographic material presented in subsequent
chapters. I hope to be able to return to them in the final chapter and make
clearer how they have contributed to the analysis and what the material
offers to them.
(Not) On knowledge
Finally in this chapter, having introduced the conceptual tools which
underlie my subsequent analyses, I now present an important digression
questioning the role of knowledge and promoting a historical ontological
approach in the spirit of the approach to social practice I have described to
this point.
There is a difficulty in social scientific discourse and research in escaping
writing and speaking always in terms of knowledge. Following Lave, I
contend that a focus on practice demands a prioritising of the ontological
over the epistemological yet this is easier said than done. Lave recognises
this difficulty in escaping speaking of knowledge. In chapter three of her
new book she addresses “how common conceptions of everyday life are
drawn as if the appropriate issues were only epistemological ones” and
“discussions about learning even when addressed occasionally as a social
phenomenon can easily end up still being exclusively “about” knowledge”
(Lave 2004a: 30). A reconceptualisation of knowledge itself is demanded if
one wants to see knowing as “subsumed in ongoing social practice” (ibid.:
30) rather than as itself constitutive of or foundational to practice, that is if
one wants to prevent epistemological concerns overshadowing ontological
ones.
In my project to date the temptation of the epistemological has loomed in
two contexts. I present these in order to illustrate that epistemological
concerns dominate our ways of doing research and trying to understand the
world and our relations in it, even when we seek to adopt another position.
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The first temptation is to use knowledge production as the legitimation for
the research. This takes the form of writing about project aims in terms of
“providing more knowledge” 31 and fails to recognise that the current
obsession with knowledge is a social and historical product. The second and
related temptation is to frame a critique of intervention practices in terms of
the knowledge they lack, implying that more knowledge would de facto
give better interventions.
What are the alternatives? The critique of interventions as lacking
knowledge does carry some weight since it is internally consistent with their
own ways of viewing knowledge as important (see chapter ten). Yet it will
not do if we really want to forefront ontology. Interventions could also be
problematised via a juxtaposition of alternative ways of knowing to those
utilised in the design and implementation of interventions. Conceptualising
knowledge not as a package but in terms of a process of knowing-inpractice
allows for different understandings of practices, interventions and
research. Research conceived as learning, or a particular form of knowingin-practice,
rather than knowledge acquisition rests on a different
framework, implying not a search after knowledge but a necessary openness
to learn in the face of practice. Lave addresses how everyday life and
learning can be turned from “matters of thinking and knowledge and its
application to matters of participation in changing ways in a changing
world” (Lave 2001: 28). Talking of “knowing” instead of knowledge allows
us to get a sense of the researcher’s position – personal and institutional –
and situatedness. Talking of knowing also functions to give knowledge a
location, albeit a changeable one. Knowledge is found in practices of
knowing, not in the library. As academics one way we do knowledge is by
writing and thinking and talking to one another. As prison staff one way
31 I fell into this trap in an early articulation of my resistance to understanding research as
the development of tools for practitioners to apply: The development of tools and
instruments of intervention must be based on thorough knowledge and as long as such
knowledge is absent the demand for tools must remain in the background. In relation to my
own project I have shown that there is little knowledge about the working practices,
contexts and relational dynamics in which Nigerian prison staff are embedded, nor on their
attitudes and perceptions of training. The most important emphasis for my project is not the
development of tools but to provide a knowledge or theory framework for enabling similar
problems to be systematically addressed in the future. I hope that my exploration of the
lived worlds of prison staff will provide me with a basis for proposing options and
recommending possible strategies for bringing about change in Nigerian and other
comparable prison settings. My project is not about empirically testing such strategies but
of laying a foundation for their development at the level of new knowledge. I still resist the
demand for tools but what I offer now is more in the way of an alternative way of knowingin-practice.
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they do knowledge is by relating to one another in particular ways, informed
by the paramilitary structures they are a part of and contribute to upholding
and expanding.
Breaking with the monopoly of knowledge, (refusing the Hegelian stance of
“knowledge as the source of social transformation” (Lave 2004a: 49)) and
thinking instead in terms of ways of knowing also allows one to ask
different questions about practices of training. For example we can ask not
what do prison staff learn or know about human rights or prison security but
about the ways in which they know. What forms of knowing are constituted
within the framework of prison staff training? Are different forms of
knowing evident in the basic training and the externally sponsored training?
Do Nigerian prison staffs’ ways of knowing offer a challenge to traditional
conceptualisations of what goes on in educational contexts? Again this is
opening up the complexity of the field, allowing the heterogeneity of the
field to show through, rather than attempting to impose a blanket preunderstood
frame over the field of enquiry. And in relation to social
transformation it is about encouraging different and varying ways of
knowing, of accepting that knowing is a form of participation that can
change.
Reconceptualising research
My advocacy of a historical ontological approach to practice implies that we
do not reify knowledge but recognise knowledge as part of a broader social
practice, not as pre-existent but as constituted in ongoing social relations.
Research must be reconceptualised not as the collection of knowledge but as
a process of participating in an ongoing shared activity of understanding the
way lived lives are constituted in practice. My proposal is that we shift from
thinking about knowledge of practice to examining knowing-in-practice,
including our own knowing. Knowing practices better will not necessarily
result in more effective interventions, but relocating knowledge not as over
and above practice but as part and parcel of it allows us to question the very
idea of intervening and causes us to examine the assumed legitimacy of
intervention strategies. Seeing knowledge as part of practice radically
relocates the researcher and the intervener not as external, distant and
removed but as co-present and engaged in shared practice. 32 I imagine a
more practice–based, solidarity-based route to social change, where shared
32 The researcher should be aware of the challenges of such work and attempt to
appropriately orient themselves to those challenges. The difficulties and uncertainties
should not lead to the exclusion of such uncertain work but rather to the questioning of
studies that claims certainty.
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Chapter 3 - Conceptual tools
work, activity and practice could contribute. Doing things together,
implying a necessary openness to learn in the face of practice, would be the
energy source for transformation rather than knowing about things.
I have expressed some of my scepticism about knowledge and pointed to the
importance of looking at social practice and at the way persons, (including
researchers) do knowing. My focus is not on knowledge about everyday
prison practice, but about practice in itself and in the arrangements of those
practices. Knowledge is one particular form of practice that fills the Western
academic landscape, making the development of knowledge into a
development of knowledge about knowledge, a kind of self perpetuating
ring as opposed to the potentially more promising transformative opening
towards liberative practices that I seek to develop.
In this chapter I have struggled to introduce some concepts, make some
connections between concepts and to ground the particular concepts I
introduce in relation to my overall purpose and the questions I am seeking
answers to. This is a dynamic process and the dynamism will hopefully
continue as concepts are confronted with the empirical ethnographic
material in the next five chapters.
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CHAPTER 4
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Introducing the field
Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
This chapter introduces the reader to the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS), to
the organisation’s history (within the context of Nigeria’s colonial history),
status, structure and institutions and the laws governing them. Prisoners and
prison officers are introduced with reference to the way they are caught up
in particular structures and arrangements of practice. Most significantly
perhaps, prison officers’ perceptions of the job are explored. In addition the
problems and challenges that the service faces in contemporary times as
defined by themselves and by outsiders are considered and an attempt is
made to convey something of the atmosphere and conditions of Nigerian
prisons.
The introduction of British rule and the birth of prisons in
Nigeria
The criminal justice system in Nigeria is a legacy of the British colonial
administration. What was the background for the colonial administration?
Dr T.O. Elias, former Attorney General of Nigeria, has described how
modern Nigeria was “acquired by the British almost in a fit of absent
mindedness” (Elias 1967: 4). Rather than a conscious administrative policy,
Elias describes Britain’s inroads of control over the territory as “piecemeal,
hesitant and planless” (1967: 4). The colonial era in Nigeria tends to be
designated as being from 1861–1960, 1861 being the year when Lagos was
seceded to the British Crown by King Docemo but it was not until 1904 that
“British ascendancy became complete” (ibid.: 6). However even prior to
1861, in 1852 a treaty had been signed by the British Consul (present since
1849) and the rulers of Lagos that addressed three core issues that can be
characterised as humanitarian, capitalist and security-conscious. According
to Elias the motives of the British were to abolish the slave trade, facilitate
trading and protect Christian missionaries.
The facilitation of trade was perhaps in the end the ultimate factor that
cemented Britain’s commitment to the territory and its gradual expansion
both geographically and administratively. The latter two decades of the 19 th
century saw the European powers dividing Africa between themselves. On
1 st January 1900 the British government took control of what until that
point, since 1886, had been a territory (the Oil Rivers Protectorate)
administered by a British trading company, the Royal Niger Company.
Despite its trading rather than political credentials, political accoutrements
accompanied the establishment of this company in the form of an armed
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
constabulary, designed amongst other things to protect the territory from the
Germans and the French. By 1904 two distinct administrative territories, the
northern and southern protectorates were being administered by the British,
that first amalgamated under a single administration in 1914 at which time
Egba state (hitherto independent due to a previous treaty with the British)
was also amalgamated.
This is the confused political background against which a system of criminal
justice and prisons developed. The Supreme Court of Her Majesty’s
Settlement of Lagos is estimated to have been established already in January
1862 and reconstituted in 1863 marking the founding of a legal system
rooted in English law (Elias 1967: 315; Alemika 1993). And with the further
development of the system came a system of punishments including
imprisonment. An organised prison system was established in 1872,
arguably to protect British business interests (Arthur 1991) and in stark
contrast to traditional reparative sanctions (Elias 1996). The first prison to
be established under the British colonial administration was built in Lagos
in 1872. Prisons based on this model spread across the country in line with
the gradual expansion of the colonial jurisdiction and in 1876 the prison
ordinances came into force (PTS Kaduna 1991).
The most important phase of development was post-amalgamation that is
from 1914 but already from 1912 the prison system began to feel keenly the
influence of colonial prison administrators. In 1916-17 a dual system of
federal prisons and provincial prisons was established, the federal prisons
holding those convicted in British established courts and the provincial
prisons those convicted by native courts. The Director of Prisons offered
supervisory control of both systems. In 1920 a Commission was set up to
report on prison conditions and in 1932 a Borstal was established in Enugu
(PTS Kaduna 1991: 14; Egu 1990).
The first training school for staff was established in Enugu in 1947. The
period 1946 - 1954 when Dolan was Director of Prisons came to be known
as the “golden age” of prison administration in Nigeria (Egu 1990: 4).
During this same period the headquarters of the prison administration was
moved from Enugu to Lagos to bring it closer to other government
departments. It has since moved to Abuja, the new national capital.
It was not only the administration of prisons which was colonial in nature.
Until the late 1950’s the majority of senior staff were also British nationals
and training of staff was modelled on British methods. In 1955 when
Nigeria was granted self-government in a lead up to independence, there
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
began a gradual period of “Nigerianization” of the prison service. In 1961
the standing orders (rules (still) governing prison practice) were published.
In 1968 the federal and local authority systems were merged following a
federal military government decision, becoming the Nigerian Prison
Service. Between 1968 and 1972 it was recognised that a reorganisation was
required and UK experts were called in. This resulted in a report submitted
by the UK experts in 1972 resulting in decree no. 9, the so-called prisons
decree.
Chronology
• 1861 –1960 (99 years) Colonial era
• 1863 - English laws establishing prison system
• 1872 - First prison (Lagos)
• 1876 - Prison ordinance came into force
• 1916-17 - Dual system of federal and provincial prisons established
• 1920 - Commission set up to report on prison conditions
• 1932 - Borstal established in Enugu
• 1947 - First prison training school established
• From 1955 - gradual period of Nigerianisation of prisons service
• 1961 - Standing orders (rules governing prison practice) published
• 1968 - Federal and native authority prisons merged
• 1968-72 - Reorganisation required- UK experts called in
• 1972 - Report submitted by UK experts resulting in decree no. 9, the so-called prisons
decree
The law governing prisons
The Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) rests on a statute originally from 1972
called the Prisons Act reviewed in 1990 and currently under review. The
Act known as CAP 366, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1990
defines itself as “an act to make comprehensive provisions for the
administration of prisons in Nigeria and other matters ancillary thereto”
(Nigerian Prisons Service 1990: 1) It is an Act about the administration of
the prisoners and not their purpose. In contrast to prison service publications
no mention is made of prisoner rehabilitation and reform. Indeed the
purpose of prison is ill defined, even taken for granted by the Act.
The four official functions of the Nigerian Prisons Service, determined not
by law but by NPS, are
1. the custody of legally detained persons
2. treatment and reform
3. preparation for discharge
4. the generation of funds for government
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(NPS Annual report 2000; PRAWA 1999)
Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
Prison formations
To carry out these functions there are 147 conventional prisons and eightythree
satellite prisons sometimes known as lock ups. These are places of
detention in rural areas where there are courts but an absence of
conventional prisons. They often have relatively small capacities (for
example twenty) though some have space for up to one hundred prisoners
(e.g. Makarfi and Saminka). There is one prison (in Lagos) for female
prisoners only. The small number of female prisoners warehoused in
conventional prisons outside Lagos are catered for in separate wings
manned by female officers. There is one Borstal institution for young
offenders and one open prison camp. There are three active training schools
and one staff college. In addition there are a number of farm centres and
market gardens. Not all the prison formations have to do with prisoners
directly. Nigeria is divided into six zones each of which has a prison service
headquarters (the zonal office) and in addition each of the thirty-six states
plus the Federal Capital Territory has a state HQ. There is a relatively hefty
bureaucratic apparatus in place, which to some level explains why there are
is almost one officer for every two prisoners. There is also the federal HQ in
Garki, Abuja where the Controller General and six deputies heading six
directorates have their offices. These Directorates into which the service is
organisationally divided are:
1. Administration, Personnel Management and Training
2. Finance and Supplies
3. Inmates Training and Productivity
4. Health and Welfare Services
5. Operations
6. Works and Logistics
The aims of Nigerian prisons
Rehabilitation, reform and reintegration
Despite the aforementioned fact that the only legally defined purpose of
prison is the secure custody of prisoners there is a dominant discourse
within the prisons service that says quite plainly that prisons are there to
reform, rehabilitate and reintegrate – the three r’s. Reform refers to a kind of
moral education, an attempt to change prisoners’ character; rehabilitation
refers to being taught a trade and reintegration to being prepared to return to
society on release.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
Morris (1978), in a chapter on the historical development of the modern
prison system, points to two distinct understandings of rehabilitation during
the early decades of the modern penal system. On the one hand there was an
understanding of rehabilitation as “moral and spiritual regeneration,” that he
describes as illustrated by the Pennsylvania penitentiary. Another
understanding draws on an assumed equivalence between work and virtue.
If prisoners could be put to work under poor conditions it would serve both
as deterrence and upliftment. 33 This version of rehabilitation, draws heavily
on a protestant work ethic that elevates work to a virtue in its own right and
equates idleness with sin. As Morris puts it,
One must compare this view with that which enjoined working people
everywhere to accept with good grace the duties of the station in life to
which they had been called. (1978: 83)
Certainly in Nigeria both these aspects of rehabilitation are articulated.
There is a distinctly moral element to staff’s claims about the intentions of
prison (in Nigeria termed reform), and rehabilitation is clearly tied to the
learning of a trade. The term rehabilitation cannot be understood at face
value, as purely referential but must be understood in use. Establishing
meaning in use can be a drawn out process. It took some time in Nigeria
before I made the connection between what appeared a quite progressive
contemporary ethos (the three r’s) and what is in fact a dated and perhaps
never relevant colonial ideology imposed over half a century ago.
Contemporary prisons ideology revealed in the lecture script designed to
guide instructors owes much to the influence of a former British Prisons
Commissioner and bureaucrat, Sir Alexander Paterson (1884-1947).
Paterson was an active prison reformer in Britain during the 1920’s and
1930’s. The front cover of the lecture script states:
We learn:- to accept the rejected; to guide and change the misguided; to
give hope and comfort to the ruined by force of personality and leadership.
(PTS Kaduna 1991)
33 Drawing on his own study of Pentonville, Morris (1978) points out the similarity in both
the design and ethos of this prison (opened in 1842) and the workhouses being opened all
over England during the same period. In the same way in which poor people were
encouraged to fend for themselves by the terrible conditions in the workhouses where so
called “public relief” was available, Morris writes “Law observance amongst the criminal
classes was to be achieved by prison conditions that would ensure that the happiest convict
was still less happy than the most unhappy law-abiding citizen” (1978: 82). This is the early
history of the less eligibility doctrine.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
The statement is unattributed but it bears the mark of Paterson. Whilst his
voice was a reformist one in Britain, in Nigeria it was a voice, which
undoubtedly well intended, supported and helped sustain the colonial
project. It is his voice that resonates still in the Nigerian training schools
when trainees extol the virtue of moral education and the learning of a trade.
In a later chapter I explore some of the relations between reform and
rehabilitation in the context of a disciplinary and tutelary agenda of
correction (see chapter six). Now I turn to the prisons themselves.
Introducing the prisons
This dissertation draws on systematic observations conducted in Kaduna
prison and time spent in the prisons at Jos, Enugu, and Makurdi, where I
conducted interviews, as well as Owerri and Zaria, where I was shown
around. The open prison and Borstal for young offenders in Kaduna and
Lamingo prison camp on the outskirts of Jos were also visited. The prisons
in Kaduna, Jos, Enugu and Owerri differ from one another in a variety of
ways. Fundamentally though, despite differences in architecture, capacity,
levels of overcrowding, and atmosphere etc. I was most struck by their
similarity. Only Makurdi was markedly different being a newly-opened
modern prison.
A member of the armed squad guards the entrance to Zaria prison
Entering the Nigerian prisons for the first time is a daunting prospect. On
my first semi-official visit I remember the mixed emotions of fascination
and repulsion that accompanied me as I was shown around the prison yard.
How should I now, in the context of an academic dissertation, try to convey
those feelings? How can I represent what I saw in the prisons without it
either appearing too emotive or too boring? For, it would be possible to
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
merely list the different constructions that make up the typical Nigerian
prison. It is possible to describe the cells, the kitchens, the hospitals, the
workshops, the offices and the punishment block but somehow such
descriptions appear abstract and distant when recorded on paper. And yet a
sense of the physical structures is necessary to put prisoners and prison
officers in context. For example, the prison gates, through which staff pass
in and out daily and which combined with sturdy stone walls serve to keep
prisoners in, dominate the architecture of the prison. In some prisons these
gates are part of two storey administrative blocks where the officer in
charge (OiC), head of operations and chief warder have their offices.
Prisoners are housed in dormitory style cells. Some cell blocks or lines as
they are called, are single storey, some two storey. One prison I visited is
situated on the side of a hill so the surrounding hills can be viewed over the
prison walls, a contrast to the claustrophobic closedness typical of prisons.
In another prison two storey cell blocks flank an open field where officers
hold their morning parade. The lines here are dramatic looking buildings
painted a mustard colour with a central arched entrance and barred
windows, shuttered with half broken wooden shutters. The place has the
flavour of stereotypes of the former eastern block, intimidating concrete
structures - somewhat Kieślowskiesque - a sense of disrepair existing
simultaneously with ongoing maintenance and building projects.
The prisons I visited were modernised (or in the case of Lamingo founded)
during the 1950’s and early 1960’s. In the following section the different
sections of prisons are introduced and described.
My visits to prisons began without exception in the office of the officer in
charge or the second in command. Typically in the office of the OiC one
finds a chalkboard with figures categorising prisoners in terms of type and
length of sentence. 34 The inmate population during my first visit to Kaduna
prison was 747. Capacity is 547. Over fifty percent are awaiting trial. I was
shown a breakdown of the figures. Over one hundred are accused of armed
robbery. The charts also show number of prisoners in each cell and capacity.
Capacity was exceeded in all but one or two cases. I took refuge in these
figures as a means of distancing myself from the faces I saw and voices I
heard as we toured the prison.
As well as the standard dormitory cells another section of the prison is the
so-called back cells or as I mistakenly called them on one occasion the
34 Such chalkboards also dominate the offices of state controllers.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
punishment block. The back cells are designed for solitary confinement
following infractions of prison discipline. However, according to a rather
defensive officer the back cells are not used that often. When I participated
in the inspection and lock up at Kaduna prison thirty-nine men were
accommodated in the back cells - I counted ten cells which gives an average
of four to a cell.
Many prisons have a women’s section segregated from the main prison by
walls and a locked gate and staffed by female officers. The population is
generally low, for example in three prisons I visited the population of the
women’s section was five, seventeen and twenty-nine respectively. In the
prison with five female prisoners - one convicted, four awaiting trials - they
were supervised by seven officers.
Another special category of prisoners are the condemned criminals (CC’s)
who are also housed in a locked, segregated section of the prison. When I
visited the CC’s section there were 7 inmates, awaiting execution. Only one
prisoner had been executed recently due, I was told by the OiC, to an
increased focus on human rights and the fact that they are encouraged to
appeal. The CC's are three to a cell designed for one. They are of all ages,
the oldest claiming to be over eighty-five, speaking in such a way as to be
incoherent to me. The cell block looked pretty squalid. I was not able to see
very far in as the crowded bodies blocked the way. I later learned that the
gallows are located at the end of the dark alley skirted by the CC's cells
down which I peered. My sense of foreboding as I eyed this dark hole would
thus seem justified. Just a few guards supervised these prisoners who were
unlocked within the confines of the walled compound. They were being
served palm oil, a kind of soup. During a visit to one of the other prisons I
was not permitted to see the condemned criminals. My guide told me it was
a sensitive area by virtue of the fact that the prisoners have a death sentence
hanging over them. The OiC in Zaria supported this view indicating the
sensitivity that the gallows in Kaduna have for prisoners when he asked me
whether I had been shown them. I had not and he interpreted this as a
reaction to prisoner sensitivities. If the gallows are opened up for viewing,
prisoners become afraid that they are about to be used. 35
Having introduced the types of cells and sections of the prison used to house
different types of prisoners I turn now to consider some of the facilities that
prisons are equipped with. Convict cells contain a water toilet. In Kaduna
35 The lecture script contains a copy of a letter from Downing Street to NPS giving details
of the length of drop for an effective hanging – a morbid example that reminded me of the
first chapter of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1979).
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
these are located as a kind of jutting annex on the back of the two storey
buildings. The condemned convicts on the other hand, do not have their own
toilet, using a bucket system when locked up. Some prisons have their own
well, others have running water. In one of the prisons a new well has
recently been dug, sponsored by a Catholic water project. It is yet to be put
to use. During my tour of Owerri prison scores of buckets stand in line
waiting to be filled. If water is a scarce commodity then hygiene no doubt is
effected. Drains are open and often clogged.
Food is a universal point of contention in prisons. In the kitchens, prisoners
in their own dirty and tattered clothes, tend fires beneath huge metal
cauldrons of water being heated up for the preparation of rice. One typically
finds a contractor’s store, a chef's store and a kitchen superintendent’s store
as well as a canteen area where the cooked rice or whatever, is washed and
stored and then apportioned. Huge sets of scales for measuring out the
amount of rice to be cooked can be found in the kitchen area. The amount to
be prepared is determined by multiplying the number of prisoners by the
ration allowed.
The atmosphere during my prison visits and observations was relatively
calm. Prisoners are either locked up or going sedately about their business
which usually involves just waiting around. On a couple of occasions I
witnessed highly exuberant games of soccer. Others are occupied in the
workshops or as they are sometimes called the “areas for reformation”.
Typically there are workshops for metal work, tailoring, shoemaking and for
carpentry. Supervising staff are ideally experts in the trade in question. In
one workshop sketches of tools and descriptions about their use are chalked
on a board and prisoners engage in a variety of carpentry tasks. There are
tools yet the machinery is no longer mechanically sound and materials are
more often than not in short supply. In the metal workshop gates are made
to sell outside.
In Kaduna there is a hospital unit, refurbished in 1999 that is divided into
three wards, one for staff, one for prisoners and one I believe for condemned
prisoners. Staffed by a medical doctor and twelve nurses, it is generally
clean, with a modern style tiled floor. An emaciated, skeletal man walks
hesitantly out of the hospital as I sit waiting for a sick trainee to be attended
to. A prisoner remarks that he would soon die. I cannot help but agree.
Another older prison hospital I visited has a more medical appearance
containing a consulting room, a dispensing room and a store for medical
supplies. The ward provides for ten patients and record cards are stacked on
a reception desk that resembles a Western nurses’ "station". The chief
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
doctor explains that examinations of a personal nature are carried out in a
curtained off area. Not all the beds are occupied - or occupy-able. Metal
springs are broken and protrude sharply upwards on one of the beds. There
is no bed linen and most patients lie on bare mattresses laid over the metalsprung
beds, covered only by blankets. One mattress, the same thin kind
they use in the training schools is lain out on the floor between two of the
beds, a patient sleeping.
Libraries, usually with a very limited supply of books, can be found in some
prisons (selected prisoners may borrow books). Some prisons have
buildings set aside for use as chapels or mosques. In Jos, the catholic chapel
functions as a teaching room. Students are being taught English by an
enthusiastic teacher. Two prisoners are doing maths exercises at the other
end of the chapel, which is decorated with the Stations of the Cross and
Bible texts. A brightly painted mosque is the most cheerful building in the
place.
The chief warder’s office lists capacity and population for each unit. A quite
false impression, of relative calm, of spaciousness even, is created if one
walks through the yard without casting a glance at the penned in awaiting
trial prisoners. Convicted prisoners are allowed out of the cells from 7.30-
13.30 and then again from 16.00-17.30. And some of them go in and out of
the gates. Awaiting trial prisoners (ATP’s) on the other hand are lucky if
they are granted forty-five minutes exercise per day and they engage in no
labour. Robbery suspects can occasionally be seen out of their cells getting
sun and air. They remain behind their fence despite the enclosure not being
closed. Their forty-five minutes exercise is granted at the warders’
discretion: "Not a right, a privilege", I was told. If they are "stubborn" the
privilege can be withdrawn. 36 The meaninglessness of existence for ATP's
in prison is stark. Not only are they in a judicial limbo, for a crime they
perhaps did not commit, they are also deprived of privacy, cramped in
quarters with other equally disenfranchised men and generally held at the
whim of the authorities.
In appendix five I offer another account adapted from my fieldnotes of a
visit to a different type of prison to those described above, where I visited
not so much as researcher but as a member of a church delegation. Church
36 The adjective stubborn has many more connotations than just pigheaded or sticking to
your guns. It includes being kind of rebellious, and challenging authority (Thanks to Phil
and Vickie Ostien for this clarification).
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
groups are particularly active in the Nigerian prisons and on this visit I was
granted an opportunity to see a prison farm from their perspective.
Rather than describing each of the prisons I visited in detail I have tried to
portray a composite image of a typical Nigerian prison drawing on my
experiences. I have struggled to give an account of the flavour of the
structures that make up prison but this still does not fully achieve my aim. In
pursuit of my goal, that is to communicate a more comprehensive image of
what confronts those involved with prisons be they staff, NGO
representatives or researchers I offer the following brief description adapted
from my field notes, written following afternoon lock up of prisoners. I call
it dramatising the mundane. 37
Dramatising the mundane
Some awaiting trial prisoners sleep on prayer mats on the
floor, not all of them to be sure - most sleep on mattresses on
metal bunks. Under the bunks are their personal belongings,
cardboard boxes containing soap and other items. Cooking
utensils lie around on the cell floors. Drinking cups are lined
up outside one of the lines, a metal water container in the
centre of the line where kitchen staff are accommodated.
Graffiti covers the walls of some cells. Inside a couple of the
convicted prisoners’ cells prisoners lie for the most part
quietly in their bunks.
The forty men crammed in another cell are all accused of
homicide, or as the counting staff put it, "this cell is for
murderers". Their eyes stare accusingly, hauntingly. And a
single voice shouts "You said you'd come back - you never
did". Another prisoner cries, "They need to change the rules
here, look at our conditions".
Behind the locked gates, awaiting trial prisoners’ bodies
physically vie with each other for space as they sit jammed
against the bars. Their state of undress adds to the image of
bodies clamouring for space, not that they don't have clothes.
Through metal bars I'm confronted with staring eyes and bare,
black flesh, not the eyes of appeal, of the fly-covered, pot-
37 The title came to me whilst reading "Sorting things out" (Bowker and Star 2000) which
got me thinking about ways of depicting realities which are emotive.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
bellied child victim of drought, but none-the-less a victim. A
victim of history, biography, infrastructure and classification
as well as ineptitude, inequality and injustice.
(Fieldnotes 10.10.02)
The previous pages present a relatively detailed image of both atmosphere,
structures and conditions. Such an account is necessary to juxtapose to NGO
reports and inspection reports that tend to reduce such detail to summary
paragraphs stating for example “prisons are overcrowded and conditions are
poor”. I turn now to consider the primary subjects of prisons, the prisoners
before introducing prison personnel.
The prison population
It is much easier to get into a Nigerian prison than it is to get out. Inmates
include persons accused – though not always convicted – of armed robbery,
murder, chicken stealing, and cattle thieving, as well as political prisoners,
marginalised youth and some arrested in lieu of family members thought to
have committed a crime.
The prison population rate (no. of prisoners per 100,000 of national
population) in Nigeria is 33 (compared with USA 702, UK 140, DK 59).
Statistical data on the NPS is hard to come by. The most recent annual
report I was able to access is from 2000 which provides statistical returns of
inmate populations across different categories including location and gender
as well as a description of the structure of the service and current status. As
of 2000 the total inmate population stood at 43,312. 62.2% of prisoners
were awaiting trial, that is 26,485 of the 43,312 total population. The
following table shows the capacity and population of the prisons I visited as
of December 2000. 38
Prison Capacity Convicted Awaiting trial TOTAL
population population population
Jos 1149 335 (6F) 339 (4F) 674 (10F)
Kaduna 547 209 668 877
Owerri 548 405 (3F) 969 (21F) 1374 (24F)
Zaria 377 241 34 275
Enugu 638 247 (10F) 571 (15F) 818 (25F)
38 Makurdi prison where I also conducted interviews is not included as it was first taken
into use post-2000.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
Prisoners are classified according to their status – convicted, awaiting trial
or condemned, though it is difficult to distinguish the different categories of
prisoners especially given the fact that there are not enough uniforms to go
around so both ATP's and convicts can be obliged to wear their own clothes.
ATP's are supposed to wear green prison uniforms, convicts blue. Apart
from the normal lines or wings and the division of prisoners into ATP’s and
convicted prisoners there is also typically a section for special class
prisoners. Special class prisoners are afforded certain privileges based on
their status in society before conviction or arrest.
Within their cells prisoners are organised according to an internally defined
hierarchy. Cell culture is clearly demarcated with a President, an Inspector
General of Police, even a court system, and an organisation of labour. The
persons sitting closest to the door are the president and his closest allies, the
door being both the access point to the outside yard and to information.
Should a lower ranking prisoner attempt out of ignorance to position himself
in the door area the internal wheels of cell justice are set in motion. The cell
politics help ease the job of warders (cf. Paulson 1999; Onojeharho and
Bloom 1986). The cell kingpins co-operate with staff, reporting
infringements to the chief warder. 39 The fact that there is an informal
arrangement between the kingpins of the cells and the staff has implications.
It likely means that weak or vulnerable prisoners can be exploited with tacit
acceptance of staff, and that kingpins are largely left to run things in the
twenty-plus man cells. The kingpins do not officially acquire privileges,
though staff can be compromised in such a way that the prisoners’ position
earns them advantages. These relationships mirror to a degree the patronage
relations of the wider Nigerian society, but complicated by factors relating
to overt power and authority. It is as if prison officers abrogate authority to
de facto controllers in order to make their working life easier.
The prison staff
Prison staff are divided into junior and senior cadres, each cadre containing
eleven ranking levels from prison assistant three as the lowest rank of the
junior cadre to the Controller General of Prisons at the head of the prisons
service. Members of the junior cadre can gain access to the senior cadre by
passing the two–month inter-cadre course once they reach the rank of
inspector of prisons. Should they fail to pass the course there are
opportunities for further promotion within the junior cadre with a ceiling at
39 This scenario contrasts with the rivalry between staff and prisoners typical in prisons in
for example the UK. In the UK the kingpins would also be the primary agents of subversion
and resistance as well as the controllers of the informal economy of the wings.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
the rank of chief inspector of prisons. (See appendix six for details of the
twenty-two different ranks). As of July 2000 the Nigerian Prison Service
employed 19,696 officers. 5,338 were of the senior officers cadre and
14,358 were junior officers. Prison officers’ salaries are made up of a basic
wage plus allowances for utilities and accommodation if not housed in the
barracks. Many officers are however housed in barracks close to the prisons
in which they work. A common complaint of officers is that salaries are not
paid on time and allowances not paid at all. Staff with a specific portfolio,
that is a special responsibility, for example course co-ordinator or
commandant have the right to an orderly. Staff occupying senior positions,
such as head of zonal or state office are provided with a prison service
vehicle and driver. When joining the service prison officers make an oath of
allegiance as demanded by the prisons act (CAP 366 section 91) which
states
Every warder shall, on being enlisted… make the following declaration by
oath in such a manner as he may declare to be most binding on his
conscience and such an oath and declaration shall be made before the
Controller General of prisons, or a superintendent or magistrate –
I A.B. hereby solemnly declare, swear and pledge that in the service of my
country –
1. I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Federal Republic
of Nigeria at all times.
2. I will not discriminate on the basis of religion, tribe cult or status
or practice any form of partiality in the performance of official
duties.
3. I will always place service to the public above selfish interests,
realizing that a public office is a public trust.
4. I will always perform my duties diligent and will not engage or be
involved in any activity in (sic; conflict?) either directly or
indirectly with this pledge.
5. I will, in the performance of my duties, eschew and expose
corruption and will also not corrupt others or aid and abet
corruption in any of its facets in and outside the public service.
6. I will always follow the path of justice, honesty and concord
amongst all the people of Nigeria in all I do so help me God.
Perhaps this declaration helps explain the nationalistic tone to some
officers’ accounts of why they joined the prison service that I consider later.
It certainly cements the relation between prison officer and the state. I do
not dwell further on the person of the prison officer, who will emerge as a
dominant figure in this dissertation, at this point. Rather I move on to
consider the training institutions.
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The training institutions
Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
This Nigerian Prisons Service in its bid to ensure performance efficiency of
its staff runs a number of training and retraining programmes. (Annual
Report 2000: 3)
Training courses take place either at the zonal offices, the training school or
the staff college. There are four active training establishments for prison
staff in Nigeria, three conducting basic training for newly recruited staff and
one conducting a similar kind of training for senior officers. 40
Sign board at the 4 th (non-active) training school
The former are known as Prison Training Schools (PTS), the latter as the
Prison Staff College (PSC). The school, in which I conducted my most
intensive work consists of a walled compound, across the road from the
local prison, a single large classroom, dormitories for the trainees, a kitchen
where meals are prepared and offices for teaching staff. A dominant feature
is the rough parade ground around three sides of which are the small single
storey rows of buildings for trainees’ accommodation, staff offices and the
classroom. The schools are headed by a Commandant, and a course coordinator
administers the day to day running of teaching and other activities.
Training is residential for a duration of six months. The number of trainees
tends to exceed available accommodation making sleeping space cramped
40 Whilst a fourth training school was described to me as brand new and already functioning
the reality when I passed by during a visit to the nearby zonal office was that the buildings
remain rather derelict, the grounds unkempt and there was certainly little evidence that it
was close to receiving students despite the presence of a core group of staff, one of whom
gestured rather vociferously at me as I hung over the wall snapping photos of the
dereliction. I do not believe accounts of this school were fabrications; rather, staff just did
not know the state of play. They had interpreted a promise and an intention as a reality and
described it as such. The fact that I was able to "reality test" illustrates how I was so much
more mobile than the majority of staff. They had no means of checking the information
they were in possession of. Means of communication are limited.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
and spartan. For example, in one dorm in Kaduna, ten trainees shared four
bunks, the remaining trainees sleeping on thin mats on the concrete floor. In
Enugu some trainees slept in a meeting room, as was also the case at the
staff college. Salaries to trainees and teaching staff are not paid for months
on end.
In general terms the schools are very similar in terms of curriculum,
marching, drill, physical exercise, procedures and routines. The sites of the
schools though, are very different. The compact site in Kaduna contrasts
with the spacious, green site in Enugu and staff in Enugu, are proud of their
location. Both schools border the local prisons. In Enugu there are sports
facilities, a tennis court and a volley ball area. There are more students at
Enugu, 492 on the course I observed including twenty-nine women. Here
there are also better teaching facilities, a number of spacious classrooms in
contrast to the single massive hall in Kaduna, but chairs and desks are
lacking and in a poor state of repair.
The number of trainees often exceeds available accommodation. Instead
of bunks these trainees sleep on thin mats on the concrete floor.
Selection for training
Generally speaking regarding training in NPS participants are chosen not
because of any personal needs or qualifications but on the basis of their
position, rank or number of years in the service. I spoke for example with a
female officer, approaching retirement age, with a position in the
administration in the office of a state’s HQ who had never been in a prison.
She was obliged to attend a six month training course where she was to
learn about prison practice and how to march and do drill. Another officer I
interviewed was sent on the basic recruit course after at least 20 years
working in the prisons.
So far in this chapter the purpose, structure, and institutions implicated in
prison practices have been introduced. In what follows I introduce the
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
relations between some of these factors via an exploration of the way in
which prison staff talk about the job.
Humanist and nationalist accounts of the job
Nigerian prison officers do not live up to stereotypical images of prison
staff. Rather than hardcore brutes, ready and willing to inflict punishment on
their fellow men and women, many officers are infused with a spirit of
benevolence and a desire to be of service. One very typical answer to the
question why did you join NPS is “to serve my country”. This answer can
be seen as a rhetorical reproduction of the paramilitary ethos that pervades
NPS, but the emphasis on service was prevalent (cf. oath made on joining).
The following quotes from interviews indicate a similar humanistic
impulse: 41
the prison service rehabilitate and after that reintegrate
working not for money but to help society
wanted to join NPS because it’s a humanitarian job
its a privilege to be a PO. I enjoy it, wearing uniform, serving my country –
correcting the bad ones in society
you know prison is a correctional institution, we don’t mistreat them, rather
we correct them… when they are behaving bad… when they are not doing
what is expected of them
if we give them all the rights and privileges they will become integrated in
the society
bad eggs can be turned to good eggs
(the work) makes me poorer financially but spiritually rich because I’ve
assisted my fellow man
These brief excerpts give clues about a humanistic tendency in prison
officers’ portrayal of their job. The following longer account that I analyse
in some detail makes it clearer.
1. the most satisfying aspect of it is that
2. I am rendering services to the society,
3. I’m helping to change people’s behaviour and
41 Dave G. Scott (2003) divides prison officers into types: the traditional or disciplinarian,
the humanitarian, and the mortgage payer based on ethnographic work conducted in a UK
prison.
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4. I feel proud about that because
5. I do tell my students in the class that
6. the job is a vocation
7. To work in a prison is a vocation.
8. Not everybody can work in a prison.-
9. The man working in the oil company
10. cannot work as a prison officer because
11. we have our own ethics and styles;
12. that you are looking after human beings
13. is a particular gift
14. because you’ll see this man is to be condemned –
15. he is to be killed
16. and you are the one
17. to give him
18. some element of moral change
19. trying to educate him,
20. trying to pacify him,
Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
21. You know sometimes they are let go free.
22. You know maybe government would like to do some amnesties.
23. They allow them to go.
24. You have succeeded
25. in doing something because
26. that person will know,
27. because people that commit crime at times regret
28. while they are in the prisons,
29. and now you are the person to change that person,
30. to change his behaviour.
31. So it’s not, the man in the bank cannot do it.
32. He deal with cash.
33. The person in the oil company is dealing with petrol
34. but you,
35. you are dealing with human beings
36. so you are more than any of these people.
37. That’s what I teach them in the class
38. So a lot of things we believe need to be done
39. on this issue of treatment of prisoners and in fact
40. if we do that there will be a lot of success.
41. The society also will be devoid of crime.
This is a significant account of the way in which a prison officer in a senior
position within one of the training schools feels about his job told via a
report of what he tells trainees. To ease the clarity of the analysis I have
divided the text into six sections. The first and the last function as buffers
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
around what is essentially reported speech. That is, in lines 7 – 36 the words
are spoken as if to an audience of trainees. Lines 5 and 6 set this up: I tell
my students… that the job is a vocation and line 37 closes the account:
That’s what I teach them in the class. These sections then can be analysed as
an example of how junior officers are encouraged to see the job as a
vocation. There is no doubt however that the speaker also sees it this way,
possibly because such an understanding helps make his own job meaningful.
The introductory section (lines 1-4) make this clear.
From the start we are told the job is satisfying (line 1) and the satisfaction
has its roots in the fact that the officer is rendering service, not to anyone in
particular, not to the prisoner but to society, a service which is specified in
the following. The aspect of service is underscored in line 3 by the use of
the verb “helping”. Yet in contrast to the preceding remark here it is not
society but a person, the person of the prisoner who is being helped. The
service to society being provided is one of helping change prisoners’
behaviour. How staff help prisoners and how behaviour is modified is not
specified. Rather the speaker chooses to declare the pride (line 4) he takes in
the job of helping and rendering service before launching into his speech to
trainees. The overt reason for the pride felt relates to the job being a
vocation (repeated in lines 6 and 7). By implication one can take pride in
having heeded the call. At this point the speaker switches into lecturer
mode. One can feel the switch from addressing the interviewer to addressing
my students in class (line 5). The following four sections have a rhetorical
strength that indicates the speech is well rehearsed. The theme of the speech
is the vocation and the rhetorical strength of it lies in the comparisons made
with other professions. By means of comparisons with people working in
banks and the oil industry the particular qualities that are required to do the
work of the prison officer – as seen by this particular officer and conveyed
to trainees - are drawn out.
The theme of vocation is explicated first by making clear that not everybody
can work in a prison (line 8), explicitly differentiating prison officers from
others. One can imagine the effects of this statement on an audience of
trainees. It suggests an element of specialness to being a prison officer. It
serves to bolster identity. Then comes the illustrative lesson, a contrast with
an oil company employee (lines 9-10). The contrast begins not with a
description of what the oil man does but with a differentiating of prison
officer and oil man in terms of ethics and styles (line 11). And these ethics
and styles relate to looking after human beings, returning the hearer again to
the themes of service and helping. At the same time the listener is returned
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
to the idea of vocation, the idea that looking after human beings is a
particular gift (lines 12-13).
The following section (lines 14-20) takes the form of an explanation, in
parenthesis as it were. It is rather surprising that the example given is of a
man who is to be killed, a condemned convict (lines 14-15). Yet this
surprise strengthens the rhetorical effect. Even prisoners who are to be
executed are worth trying to change in the eyes of the helping, serving
prison officer. (Contained in the adjective “condemned” is not only the
judgement but also its carrying out, as is indicated by the clarification in the
next line – he is to be killed (lines 14-15)). Lines 15 and 16 mirror each
other “he” in the one line facing death, “you” in the next giving him some
element of moral change (line 18). How does one give moral change to
another person? The method at least involves both education and
pacification (lines 19-20), tutelage and calming, suggesting both a need for
education and a state of agitation in the condemned person.
In the third section, as if recognising that the listener might be surprised by
the example of the condemned man, the speaker explains that in some
instances they are set free, for example through amnesty (lines 21-23).
Success is conditional on the prisoner knowing and potentially regretting
that they have committed crime. It continues to go unspecified exactly how
the prison officer helps the prisoner, as the focus shifts from the illustrative
condemned man back to the listening prison officer trainee: you are the
person to change that person (line 29). Lines 27-28 actually seem to suggest
that the prisoners’ regret has little to do with anyone but himself yet the
claim is made that the change made is due to the prison officer. It is
interesting too that it is not a change only in terms of regretting previous
actions but a change in behaviour though no indication is given of what this
might be. At this point the explanation ends and we are returned to the
contrast. A new figure is introduced, the man in the bank who deals with
cash (lines 31-32). Here the issue becomes who one deals with, the purpose
being to reinforce that prison work is work with human beings that has a
value superior to working either with money or oil, emphasised in lines 35-
36 you are dealing with human beings so you are more than any of these
people. This closing remark privileges the prison officer, glorifying them
compared to the other professions mentioned, both professions in Nigeria
that one could expect to generate incomes far in excess of that earned by a
prison officer.
Line 37 brackets the reported speech as the speaker returns to address the
interviewer stating that much remains to be done in the area of prisoner
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
treatment. The speaker returns indirectly to the opening theme, that of
rendering service to society. If more can be done in the area of prisoner
treatment then there will be a lot of success. The society also will be devoid
of crime (lines 40-41). This remarkable, over-inflated, utopian claim helps
explain how society is to be helped by the prison officer’s work and the
prisoner’s behavioural change. The substance of the link however, between
the end result of a society devoid of crime and the work of the prison
officer, is not explicated. I am left wondering about how the speaker can
believe that the work of the prison officer can have such extensive results?
Perhaps it is but a dream? The point is not to ridicule the dream but ponder
its effects.
The slogan on the front of the lecture script referred to earlier resonates with
the quotations above and represents a dominant rhetoric in the training
courses and materials, illustrating the ongoing colonial influence. There is
an optimism. Prison staff claim their work is rehabilitative. They work
towards the production of law-abiding citizens. Trainees speak of their wish
to serve their country, of how they love the idea of bearing uniform and
being constantly available to serve the nation. Rather than being a product
of historically produced cultural practices this claim would seem to be a
product of having joined the service rather than a reason to join. It is a
paramilitary post hoc rationale, granting a particular form of legitimacy and
a particular set of identifications and form of self image.
Above I have presented a common version of prison work as portrayed by
officers. Notwithstanding their ambitions there remain serious problems and
challenges that the service faces that make the achievement of these aims
near impossible. The most serious and most commonly acknowledged
problem is prison overcrowding and lack of access to justice for prisoners.
Challenges facing prisons
Overcrowding and lack of access to justice
As of 2000 the total inmate population stood at 43,312 as against a total
capacity 42,681. As the annual report points out “overall congestion stands
at only 1.5%” (Nigeria Prisons Service 2000: 24) yet if one studies the
figures more carefully one finds examples of gross overcrowding. Indeed
sixty-nine out of 227 prison institutions exceed capacity, thirty-six of these
by more than 50%, twenty-four of these by more than 100%, and two of
these by 200%, namely Awka prison in Benin zonal area and Kirikiri
medium security in Lagos.
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
As disturbing as these figures are they are not the whole truth. One also
needs to take into account the skewing of prison populations in terms of the
percentage of the population who are awaiting trial. As of 2000, 62.2% of
prisoners were awaiting trial, that is 26,485 of the 43,312 total population.
Often a prisoner can await trial for a longer period than the sentence for the
crime committed justifies. When this happens the legal requirement is that
he be released but by all accounts paperwork often lags behind. When
thinking about overcrowding one has to bear in mind that prison populations
are separated according to category. Thus within a single prison whilst
actual capacity might exceed population, the capacity of places available for
awaiting trial prisoners in relation to convicted prisoners might not. That is
to say a cell for convicts might be half empty whilst a cell for awaiting trials
might be exceeding capacity by double. This would give a net figure of
population equalling capacity and give little cause for concern. The point to
be aware of here is that awaiting trial prisoners are likely to be
disproportionately overcrowded even where prisons as a whole are not
overcrowded.
According to the Prison Service’s annual report for 2000, 67 out of 228
prison formations were exceeding capacity in December 2000. The worst
prison in the country, as it was described to me by a senior officer, is
Kirikiri in Lagos, one of the prisons singled out for critique by NGO’s such
as CLO in the early 1990’s. In 2000 the capacity was 704 and the population
3522. The explanation for this overcrowding is a classic example of “the
rich get richer; the poor go to prison” (Reiman 2003), of warehousing the
poor and undesirable elements of the local community. The prison lies in a
slum area where so called “market traders” are routinely arrested and
remanded in custody by a “formal” task force and then forgotten! Another
similar event took place in early September 2002 when 80 prisoners were
delivered to Kaduna on a single occasion, after the police went hunting for
people on the streets at night. Such practices have few advantages for prison
staff but are financially advantageous to the police, via the collection of
bribes. Such practices also ensure that it is those who cannot pay who end
up delivered to the prisons.
Overcrowding is one of the most pressing and serious problems facing
prisoners in Nigeria. During a visit to a northern prison I discussed with the
officer in charge why overcrowded prisons could not transfer prisoners to
other underutilised prisons. One reason is structural. Certain prisons are
designed to hold certain types of prisoner. The prison in question could not
accept condemned convicts, that is prisoners awaiting a death sentence, for
example. Still, given the number of other types of prisoners this reason does
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Chapter 4 – Introducing the field
not seem comprehensive or explain why transfer could not be an option. A
more convincing explanation was revealed by the officer in charge’s
personal resistance to having more prisoners. The OiC was not really
interested in solving the overcrowding problems of other prisons (indeed he
seemed to deny that overcrowding was a problem in Nigerian prisons), but
in making sure that his own prison ran smoothly. His stance on
overcrowding was informed by local and personal factors and
considerations. One strategy, the OiC utilised to ensure the smooth running
of the prison (his prison) was to personally vet all incoming prisoners. He
emphasised repeatedly how he would not accept sick prisoners because he
would be obliged to pay for their treatment/medication out of his own
personal money. Here we have a real factor influencing a personal stance
having institutional (and personal) consequences. The OiC also indicated
that prisoners he evaluated as potential troublemakers could be turned away
under the pretence of sickness. Such a strategy is an example of resistance
to practices of allocation of prisoners that would seem set in stone to an
outsider examining the rules governing practice. By utilising this sorting and
dumping strategy the intentions of the courts and the prison administrators
are circumvented and rules and procedures are demonstrated to have a
degree of plasticity and malleability.
Overcrowding is not only the fault of the prisons. The disturbing fact that a
large proportion of prisoners are awaiting trial points to the fact that the
problems of prisons are knock-on effects of ultra slow courts and an
inefficient justice system.
Summary
This chapter has presented the basic frameworks of prison service practice.
It has introduced the reader to institutions and persons and attempted to
evoke the atmosphere that prisons create. In addition the chapter has begun
to demythologise the person of the prison officer. In the following chapter I
trace the trajectory of one specific prison officer through his life and his
career in the prison services. This presentation gives further clues about the
ongoing practices within prisons and training schools and what it means to
be a Nigerian prison officer.
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Chapter 5 - Prison officer trajectories
Persons-in-practice: prison officer trajectories
A substantial part of this chapter presents a single prison officer’s
participation in practice across time and space. Torhile’s background, his
story and the significant ongoing relationships and activities that make up
his everyday life are presented, often using his own words. All prison
officers have a personal narrative, a history, a trajectory. All prison staff
have significant relationships and activities that constitute their everyday
lives and which their everyday lives constitute. In the latter part of the
chapter I utilise Torhile’s accounts to present an image of the typical
working day of the prison officer in the prison yard and training school
respectively. 42
Torhile, as a single person in practice is of course unique. His life, though
not paradigmatic of prison officer lives is at least exemplary in many
respects. Whilst he is perhaps not a typical officer - if such a person can be
found - his own particular life trajectory brings into sharp relief particular
aspects of what it means to be a Nigerian prison officer engaged in
particular everyday and working practices. This is to say Torhile shares a
world with other prison officers, that is structured in particular ways. Yet he
lives in this world in his own way, drawing on his own personal history and
making history, as other members of the prison service also do. His
particular way of living and acting in and through this world brings into
focus aspects of practice that others live through in different or similar
ways.
My reason for tracing Torhile's personal trajectory in so much detail is
precisely in order to explore more closely the relations and structures in
which he participates and which frame the everyday lives of other prison
officers including trainees. I examine Torhile's trajectory through the
analytical lens of trying to establish how relations of subjectivity and
structure are constituted in practice. How does Torhile find space to act in a
working context so ordered in advance? To what extent are Torhile's
possibilities for action curtailed and to what extent is he able to challenge
this curtailment? What are his and others’ scopes of possibility?
42 In chapter two I discussed the necessity of getting to know research subjects if there is
any chance of creating a meaningful psychology of persons-in-practice. This chapter is not
an account of my getting to know Torhile but it is premised on the fact that I did get to
know him and I still know him and I know him as a person in practice(s) as I myself am a
person in practice.
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Chapter 5 - Prison officer trajectories
Torhile’s background and upbringing
Torhile was born in 1959, whilst his father, a soldier is stationed in Congo.
His early years were spent with his mother in the military staff barracks in
Kaduna, where there were very few boys his age:
Because of the crisis in Congo and because soldiers from our barracks were
drafted to Congo there were very little boys my age in the barracks. We
were only about two or three. The rest were all big boys because there were
no husbands at home (laughter).
Torhile grants the barracks particular significance for his development:
In the barracks you are made to survive, because there are a lot of bullies in
the barracks so you learn to be aggressive. And then growing up in the
barracks, what the soldiers are doing, you try to do…. Even at that early
age. We ran through the ropes, go through the trails, go through the barbed
wire, go through whatever, climb obstacles. So it really broadens the mind
and it gives you a bigger outlook than the boys growing up in the town
outside the barracks. Well, you are more wise, you are more tough.
Significant here, and relevant to my later analysis of discipline is the link
Torhile makes between the physical rigours of imitating soldiers and the
broadening of one’s mind, giving him a basis for claiming he is wiser and
tougher and with a bigger outlook than boys growing up outside the
barracks. Due in part to the lack of companions in the barracks, Torhile
began to accompany his elder brother to school, where he would play until
his brother's school day was over. He was only four years old, which is three
years too young to be starting school. He described his official entry to
school like this:
There was this class teacher in the school who saw me always in school
like this who decided to ask my mother to sew school uniform for me so
that I could come and enrol into primary one.
When Torhile's father returned from Congo in 1964 he was still in primary
one, where he stayed until 1966 when he finally was old enough to move up
to primary two. In 1969 Torhile's father died during the Biafran civil war
and Torhile and his mother moved from Kaduna to their town of origin in
Benue state, creating an interruption in Torhile's school career. He told me
how after a month in the home village
… my uncle who was in the Nigerian navy came home on leave and he saw
me and he felt because I was so inquisitive about knowing things - I wanted
to read; I wanted to know; I wanted to ask; I kept asking questions - so he
decided to say to me “come with me, let’s go Lagos and continue your
schooling there”.
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There is a significant point being emphasised by Torhile in these accounts.
Firstly he describes in some detail how he came to start school early (he also
described how he was already reading his elder brother’s textbooks whilst in
primary two) and then he gives an account of his uncle taking him to Lagos
because of his inquisitiveness, his eagerness for knowledge, his questions.
He presents himself as somewhat precocious. The quest for education is a
theme in Torhile's narrative, and his future trajectory despite the fact that he
was to miss secondary school totally. Torhile spent about five years in
Lagos, firstly at a Muslim primary school. His uncle was away some of this
time stationed in Germany and this absence resulted in Torhile not being
enrolled in secondary school when he finished primary school. Instead he
took a job as a bus conductor in a slum area of Lagos. Dissatisfied with not
being in school Torhile sent a secret letter to his mother who was no longer
in the village but back in Kaduna telling her that he was not in school and
when she visits him he asks to go back with her. This comes to pass but
rather than going to school Torhile gets a job as a runner, a kind of errand
boy for a public relations company. Aged fifteen he gets a new job
supervising the non-teaching staff working in a catholic school. He was the
only one amongst these staff who could read or write. After two years of
employment in the school Torhile who has begun to train in free style
wrestling enrols on a two month gymnastics course back in Lagos, during
which time his friends enlist in the Nigerian prisons service.
So by the age of fifteen Torhile has lived in both the north and the south of
Nigeria (a point not insignificant given the ethnic and religious division of
the country), he has attended primary school three years longer than normal
but missed secondary school and he has had three jobs progressing from bus
conductor to errand boy to supervisor. Torhile described his decision to
enlist in NPS as influenced by his friends:
I came back from the course and most of my friends had enlisted into the
Nigerian prisons. When I came, I was like alone outside the group of
friends. On 15 th January 1977 I now went into Kaduna headquarters and
met the course officer and I told him I wanted to enlist in the service. And
he said come back in 2 weeks, there would be recruitment.
In the job interview, when asked about why he wanted the job, he responded
that it was because he didn’t have one! The interviewer dropped his biro in
surprise. At this time Torhile, after living for a short while with another
uncle in Kaduna, was sharing two rooms with his group of seven friends all
who shared an interest in martial arts, wrestling and similar sports. Once a
week he would visit his mother by bicycle and collect a food packet. Prison
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officer salaries were not much, not that his mother was wealthy. She made
money selling homebrewed beer made from wheat, millet and guinea corn.
Torhile was a young man at this time. Today it is he who is obliged to take
care of members of the extended family, others in the village where his
mother and sick sister now reside. The village is basically just three families
with close ties through the generations. Torhile’s status as a government
employee means he is seen as a stable source of help and assistance:
Everybody needs. When you go home there are obligations to people in the
village. They want you to assist in one way or the other. If somebody is
sick they want you to help to buy drugs, things like that. These are
obligations that you must fulfil – since you are around – and they look up
to you because you are in government work, you are a government worker.
They seem not to care what your salary is or what your own immediate
family obligations are. They really don’t care about that. They have
problems, they see you, so you are expected to solve their problems.
And how does that make one feel?
It’s normal. It’s now your turn. Others have done it for you before, when
you were young. It’s now your turn to kind of repay back what you enjoyed
from your elders.
Torhile now has obligations in the village
Returning to Torhile’s early career we find that despite enlisting in the
prisons he was not to join his friends who were sent to the training school.
Instead and to his surprise Torhile was sent direct to the prison. He tried to
account for this as follows:
I would have been transferred, sent to the training school along with them
but one of the officers said “No”, that I should go and work in the prison. I
don’t know why anyway. I don’t know why he particularly picked me to go
and work in the prison. Five persons were chosen to go to the prison. I was
already on the list to go to the prison training school. I don’t know why he
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now singled me out and says “No, you come work in the prison”. So I went
to the prison… My friends were already in the training school and that was
where I wanted to be too - in the training school - but after recruitment I
was sent to the prison. I was sent to the prison after recruitment.
Torhile expresses surprise at not being sent to join his friends. At the same
time he succeeds in emphasising that he was "singled out", "particularly
picked". This impression is created partly due to the way in which he
introduces what should have happened, emphasised later by the claim that
his name was on the list, and partly by the mystery he creates about why he
was chosen. It is made to sound as though it happens on the whim of a
single officer, actually against his own desire to be with his friends, at the
same time as the final repetition (reversal) functions to underline the
undisclosed difference between Torhile and his friends. The overall effect of
this statement is to emphasise how Torhile is not quite like the others. There
is some undisclosed reason why he was treated differently. This theme of
difference reappears in Torhile's narrative, also in the same rhetorical style,
with accompanying surprise (luck), when he later describes how he was
promoted rather quickly:
My history in the prisons service was a very lucky one because I joined in
1977. In 1979 I was promoted corporal.
On a number of other occasions Torhile expressed a degree of
embarrassment at his status vis-à-vis his colleagues. In this instance he said:
… and then because a lot of people are so diabolical in the service I was
even ashamed myself for putting on the chevron so when I leave home to
come to work I put the chevrons in my pocket.
You were ashamed because you got the promotion, because of peoples
reactions?
Because of people’s reactions so when I am coming to work I’d put the
chevrons in my pocket and I’d come into the prison and then I’d get
somebody to pin it up for me and after work again I’d remove it into my
pocket and go…
And later, giving a clue that age (precociousness again) is a factor
I was too young to be a corporal… Even some of the guys I know, those
who joined the service before me, they ask “Why this? Why that?” I think
it is providence because I never had any additional qualifications or
anything…
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His shame and embarrassment is induced because of "diabolical"
colleagues. I read this as referring to colleagues who could be jealous or
envious of his apparent fast track promotion. A similar example, though
suggesting discomfort due to undue attention and modesty rather than envy,
is presented by the reasons Torhile gives for not wearing uniform during the
bus ride to work:
Why I don’t go in uniform from the house is that I feel that with my rank
when struggling for bus if I get my uniform dirty, get it spoiled and if there
are some people who want to say “Ah give him time, give him time, let
him sit first, let him do this”, and I don’t like being, I don’t like when I go
in uniform, so I prefer going in mufti and be like every other person on the
bus. Sometimes I meet with my colleagues at the bus stop and they greet
me, you know usually subordinate staff, “Attention, morning sir, morning”,
they embarrass me sometimes.
They are themselves in uniform or...?
Sometimes they are in uniform, sometimes they are not.
So they betray you?
They betray me. They take my bag and all that and they make me pay.
Because they have done all that I have to pay for them, I have to pay for
their bus fare…
Torhile has a position and he is granted a position. In this instance his
position is brought into play as a spectacle and creates an obligation and a
response (not wearing uniform for the bus journey) that is clearly an
expression of subjectivity. The position he is thrust into plays into Torhile’s
expression of a particular stance. Torhile wants to be like every other person
on the bus. Of course there are multiple considerations operating here. One
reason for not going in uniform is to prevent it getting dirty. One reason
colleagues differentiating behaviour is uncomfortable is because it means he
has to pay their fare. But the most significant factor seems to be the issue of
distinctiveness, the theme of sameness/difference that occurs throughout
Torhile's account from his early start at school, through his assignation to
the prison not the training school, to his fast promotion and beyond.
Early years in the prison
Torhile spent five years working in the prison yard interrupted only by a sixmonth
spell at the training school for his basic training. The first eighteen
months of his prison service career he spent in the lunatic asylum in the
prison - he was eighteen. He speculates that maybe he was posted there
because of his martial arts training. From the lunatic asylum he moved to
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work for two years with condemned prisoners, those usually known as CC’s
(condemned criminals), prisoners sentenced to death, usually by hanging.
During that time Torhile attended a two-month course at the ministry of
works in Kaduna on the setting up, adjusting and repair of the gallows.
Whilst his job in the asylum involved mainly guard duties the job with the
CC’s came also to involve the servicing of the gallows and the escort of
prisoners to their deaths. I mention this not to be dramatic but because a
later description of Torhile's participation in hangings, based on his training
and experience, forms the background for a discussion of the relations of
prison work to everyday life and personal relationships.
After two years with the CC’s Torhile was transferred to the training school
as an instructor where he was to work for twenty years. At the same time he
enrolled in a course at the local training school where after four years and
now aged twenty-seven he passed four credits at O level, the equivalent of
secondary school final exams. In 1983, a year or so after joining the
teaching staff at the training school (note, a teacher without a secondary
school education), Torhile was promoted to sergeant this rank being
converted to assistant inspector in 1989 when the ranking system was
changed. In 1990 he was sent on the fifth advanced course (one of the most
prestigious courses in Nigerian Prisons Service) held in Kirikiri, Lagos. The
course, lasting six months, featured instructors from the prisons training
school, the Nigerian navy, and Lagos State University. It gains its prestige
from the fact that promotion to assistant inspector is guaranteed if you come
out with good results, no matter what rank you are when you begin the
training. Torhile was promoted to assistant inspector two when he
completed with good results. Already six months later he was promoted
again to assistant superintendent of prisons. Promotions continued fairly
regularly - in 1994 after three years teaching at the training school Torhile
was promoted inspector of prisons one and three years later deputy
superintendent of prisons and then again three years later in 2000
superintendent of prisons. (See appendix six for an overview of the ranking
system in NPS).
After the advanced course Torhile was given the position of academic
officer in the training school. When the officer holding the position of
training officer retired, Torhile was moved into this position. The retirement
of an officer created an opening but seniority can also close down
possibilities for others:
I would have been made course co-ordinator but because of this very
superior officer then in the school who had no portfolio, the then
commandant if he makes me course co-ordinator or course officer that
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would make my portfolio kind of more than that superior officer. He was
chief superintendent of prisons and I was just superintendent of prisons two
star so I was working with him. He was course co-ordinator but I was
actually doing the course co-ordinating. But by office he was course coordinator.
This is but one example of seniority trumping merit in the hierarchical
paramilitary structures that make up the prison organisational structure.
Torhile’s way was opened by a retirement and at the same time a next stop
was blocked by the presence of an officer of rank senior to Torhile’s. The
senior officer is given the position that his rank entitles him to but the work
is carried out by the person with the competence and the skills to do the job,
in this case by Torhile. Despite the strictness of the formal rules the practice
allows for flexibility. Torhile does not express any bitterness about this state
of affairs. It is accepted in a rather matter of fact manner as if to say this is
the way things work. There appears little scope to expand the possibilities
open to Torhile in a formal sense. One could argue he is obliged to
reproduce his own subjugation by the structures that govern promotion and
rank. And yet Torhile clearly thrives on the tasks he is given and adopts a
positive stance to the responsibility.
Torhile described the criteria on which he believes he was given the position
of training officer. Clearly position can depend on merit all other things
being equal, whilst rank is determined not by merit but by other factors,
notably length of time in the service and the carrying out of promotion
boards:
The criteria for making me training officer was because I had stayed long
and I had passed through all the ranks and I had experience in almost all
the fields, in the training school, on parade, on physical training, in
classroom lecture and then with some of the other training courses I have
attended, unarmed combat course, weapons training course, parade drill
one course, classroom lecturer course, at the staff college and the training
school, Kirikiri . And with all these credentials put together I want to
believe that is why I was made training officer.
Torhile emphasises the collective strength of his participation in a great
variety of training courses, what he calls his credentials. He presents himself
to me and no doubt also to the authorities as a competent all rounder. During
his time as training officer six different senior officers occupied the position
of course co-ordinator but always in name only without making a serious
contribution to the carrying out of the tasks under the jurisdiction of the
position. The work was passively delegated, if you like:
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What happened is like they got posted to the school because of one thing or
the other, not because they want to come to the school to work. So most of
them, almost all of them, when they come to the school they just try to kind
of, how do you say? (They are) lackadaisical about the whole, they don’t
care you know…
They were not seeking out responsibility?
… after all whenever I make my programme I still take it to the course coordinator
so it is like him. I am just like a secretary. I work for him… so
none of them really cared to say “Come on, let me try to do something”, or
“How is it you do this or do that?” They didn’t really care, after all,
because when I have done it I take it to them and it is them that signs not
me.
Torhile filled a gap that was waiting to be filled and he occupied this
position until leaving the school in 2002.
The fusion of work and home
In 1994 Torhile married a fellow member of prison staff employed in the
zonal headquarters. They have three children together, one who sadly died
in early 2003 just after the birth of the third. They live with other members
of the extended family in the staff barracks adjacent to the training school
and across the road from the prison, nine persons (including four young
children) in three modest rooms. 43 The whole area is referred to as a security
zone due to the presence of the police training school, a police station,
police barracks and an army training establishment all in the vicinity.
During the so-called “Miss World” riots (see Human Rights Watch 2003)
some displaced persons sought refuge in the prison and police barracks. The
barracks are meant for junior officers but space in the senior officers
barracks has not been made available. The proximity of Torhile’s quarters to
the training school enhances the flow of visitors passing through each day,
be they colleagues or trainees. Often the parlour is occupied by colleagues
or students from the school calling in to ask for advice on personal or school
matters:
I think being the most senior officer around, when the students have
problems in the school, sometimes personal problems, sometimes problems
with their course work, sometimes generally like that, some of them have
questions to ask so they come to the house.
43 This was the home I shared whilst conducting my ethnographic work in the school and
prison.
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What happens to rank? Is the seniority relationship maintained even though
they come into your home or does it sort of melt a little bit if you see what I
mean?
Sure, I get you. So when they come they think, “Ho, we are going to Oga’s
house” so they come… Even to knock on the door - they find it very hard
to knock and maybe somebody asks “Who is there?” and the person says “I
want to see Oga”. So they kind of still maintain that seniority but in my
own way, in my own style of doing things often times I want to get the
person relaxed so he can talk to me because if he is so tense he might not
be able to tell me what he really wants to say, so I ask the person to come
in. Sometimes I say “Sit down”, but sometimes they prefer standing or they
prefer squatting. They’ll prefer squatting or standing. Very few of them
when I say sit down, sit. They want to maintain the superiority…
sometimes its embarrassing for me.
Here as well as the fusing of home life with work life we have yet another
example of Torhile's discomfort with the superiority his rank and position
grant him. He feels embarrassed by the student’s own discomfort and their
adoption of a subservient position in his home. It is significant that both this
example and the example from the bus-stop concern situations that are in
some senses distinct from the formal confines of the prison service. They
are two distinct locations that share the fact that they are not as it were
prison property (though his quarters being part of the barracks blurs this
distinction somewhat). The particular situated nature of ongoing practice
has significance for Torhile and the feelings invoked in him. Location
matters to his way of participating in practice. The point is I cannot recall
Torhile expressing or demonstrating discomfort with his position or the
authority and respect that goes with it whilst in the school or in the prison.
Whilst on duty he is happy enough to accept the designation and its
accoutrements. He has - to be sure - his own style of doing things also in the
prison and training school contexts but there he is more willing to take on
the mantle of office and participate in his own style within the bounds
created by being on duty, having the rank and position he has. In the private
sphere of his quarters and the public sphere of the bus-stop there is more
(extra) scope for his particular personhood to make itself felt. The structures
are much more permeable, there is more space for his own subjectivity to
show itself.
In the work context the hierarchy is determinative of the degree to which
Torhile's capacity to act independently is allowed freedom. In the context of
the prison he is positioned in such a way that his space for action and
initiative only covers those below himself in rank or position. In the context
of the school there are many and his capacity to organise and maintain
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authoritative relations with trainees brings with it a degree of influence a
more unpopular officer would struggle to achieve. His personal qualities and
the position he occupies (in lieu of the strawman senior to him) combine to
create an appearance of greater freedom than is perhaps actually the case.
Everyday life
So far I have traced, with Torhile, his background and his entry into the
service, and to some extent his career pathway, though without going into
detail about what the job actually entails. Later in this chapter I explore two
typical days in the life of a prison officer, again seen through the particular
life lived by Torhile. I examine a typical day working in a training school
and a typical day working in a prison. The training school and the prison as
institutions form the substance of the following two chapters.
Before coming to the typical days I want to dwell on the everyday life of
Torhile, particularly that part of everyday life that goes beyond everyday
working life. There is more to the life of a prison officer than the job and
neither the job nor the person can be understood in isolation from everyday
life. As we will see Torhile's everyday life features three primary action
contexts, the family, the job, and the church. Within each of these contexts
there are a variety of ways of participating and forms of activity. Family life
for Torhile is currently curtailed by the fact that since he was transferred
from the training school he is now (and has been since 2002) stationed many
hours journey away. This he finds far from ideal:
…I feel lonely at times and I feel very nostalgic and want to be with my
wife. I want to be with the kids…. Because of all the normal things in
Kaduna that’s when I feel I get homesick sometimes, but I have to work
and Makurdi is where I work so there is nothing I can do about it.
Otherwise I wouldn’t. It’s not that I like being in Makurdi away from the
family, no, but there is nothing I can do about it.
How do you mean nostalgic?
I feel homesick. I feel like being in Kaduna at home with the family. I
really, really want to be in Kaduna but I can’t be in Kaduna because I have
to remain in Makurdi where I work.
When their second child died it was particularly difficult for Torhile - his
daughter was buried in his absence - and he begged his senior officer for
time off to spend with his wife and the other children. He brought his wife
and the children with him back to Makurdi. I asked why this was the case:
Why did you have to take her?
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Just because she should have a change of scene. Living in the same place
with the child and she dies there and all that stuff I thought maybe that
being in the same environment that might continue to maybe upset her… so
she stayed with me in Makurdi for a week and we went to the village where
her mother is, my wife’s mother.
This sad set of events illustrates some of the difficulties faced by prison staff
who are transferred and stationed, typically at very short notice, away from
their families. Torhile occupies a senior position in the prison as second-incommand
(2iC). It is likely that lower ranking members of NPS would have
less success begging their senior officer for time off in such circumstances.
Daily life in the prison barracks whilst Torhile was still in Kaduna featured
getting the children ready for school, sharing meals, being with visitors,
taking a bath, watching TV and other rather routine activities. Going to
church and participating in other church-related activities is a dominant
feature in Torhile's everyday life. Torhile tries to attend morning mass
everyday. He has not always been actively religious. He joined the church in
1987 during one of a number of the so-called Kaduna Crises. Torhile had
learned that his friends were engaging in vigilante protection of the local
Catholic Church for fear of attack by militant Muslim youths. He joined
them as they stood watch and noting that they went inside to worship he
began to join them, gradually learning the rituals, attending catechism
classes, being baptised, taking Eucharist and so on. Torhile is a founding
member of the "Association of Immaculate Friends of our Lady", a
devotional and social group, committed to enjoying each other’s company
and supporting each other in times of difficulty. The written constitution
declares (and Torhile stated publicly) that members are encouraged to attend
early morning mass daily or at least one morning a week, to spend thirty
minutes a week in devotions of the blessed sacrament and to say a minimum
of five decades of the rosary per day. Torhile collectively describes the
Immaculate Friends as his closest friends. This is not surprising given
Torhile’s own personal mix of humanity and spirituality, his commitment to
church and work and the fact that the group is made up of colleagues and
church friends. It is also a group he has helped draw up the constitution for
and mould, so his identification with the people who are part of it could be
expected.
Torhile is also a member of the legion of Mary, an association in the church
that meets for prayer and visits people in their homes. They do not limit
their visits only to church members, as Torhile put it:
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…any people, anybody at all. We try to encourage people about their
spiritual lives about praying always, trying to live a good life. We actually
do not go to preach the Bible, we actually do not go to preach because we
visit virtually all denominations, Muslims, Christians, traditional
worshippers and all. So we visit everybody and just try to go talk to you,
encourage you about the spiritual life reminding you to pray always, go to
church and maybe ask some questions if there is any way at all that we can
be of assistance. The legion of Mary forbids material presentations, we do
not give any material presentations. We also visit patients in the hospital to
encourage them, visit them and encourage them to always pray to God and
we greet them…we visit orphanage homes, fetch water, clean, mop and
dust the place. We visit old people and clean out there places for them and
talk with them, sit with them and assist them wherever we can, manual
labour. That’s what the legion of Mary does.
The Immaculate Friends are a more closed church group set up to support
members both spiritually and materially but based on a link between the
spiritual and the material. The group developed when there was recognised
a need to help people who were living together but not married to organise a
wedding party, because lack of funds was the primary obstacle to the
marriage being acknowledged by the church and the persons being able to
participate fully in the church activities:
…we meet every first Sunday of the month, we meet and discuss ideas and
how to carry them out, what to do and what has been done… We have a
prayer session first Saturday of every month also, prayer and devotions for
one hour… and then on Wednesdays, first Wednesday of every month we
have meeting for Bible sharing… What we do at the Bible sharing is we
discuss the Bible, we share and we educate ourselves on the Bible… And
then on first Sunday of the month we have our normal meeting where we
discuss about the Immaculate Friends, about the church …
At the Sunday meeting they also socialise and party together. Torhile told
touchingly of how the Immaculate Friends organised the burial of his
daughter in his absence:
In fact, like I said, before I came home she was already buried. They
organised the church service, they paid the coffin, they paid for everything,
everything…
To what extent does Torhile's religious faith fulfil the role of meta-theme in
Torhile's life? I have already mentioned humility. It is also my impression
that Torhile draws on his faith as a guide to behaviour. He attempts to model
his interactions with others on norms and values that are consistent with his
religious beliefs. In contrast to the structure of the prison service that impose
themselves involuntarily on Torhile's working life his religious convictions
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and their outworking both at home and at work and elsewhere are a product
of his personal choice.
Torhile's wife is equally active in church activities but this aspect of
everyday life is not necessarily typical for prison staff members. I asked
Torhile about this and he replied emphatically:
No, no, no, no, no. This is just a personal thing; religion is a personal thing.
Religion is personal to individuals. Our individual personal lives, our
individual private life differs.
Torhile elaborated on the ways in which prison officers' everyday lives
(outside the job) differ to his own and from each other:
There are some persons who, even in the barracks there are persons who
don’t go to church except on Sundays. They go to church on Sunday and
that’s it until another Sunday. They have nothing to do with visiting people
to talk to them about religion. Some people go to work, some people have
farms, some people go to their farms to farm, some persons go ride bike,
commercial bike, Okada, so after work they go and ride Okada even on
Sunday and other days… There are some who are Muslims, say their 5
prayers in a day, 5 times pray a day and have nothing to do with church. It
depends on the individual.
Whilst religion is clearly important for Torhile he emphasises here how
other prison officers are occupied with other activities and in some cases
other revenue generating activities. It is not uncommon for prison officers to
have a supplementary job such as okada (moped) rider, small-scale farmer
or even a mini-van taxi business.
Religion is a significant factor in the lives of Nigerians and to some extent
everyday life in Kaduna at least is framed within a religious discourse
polluted by violence, that creates a fear of the unknown. It has not always
been this way according to Torhile:
In Kaduna, where all these riots kind of started, in times before you will
find Christians and Muslims living together, mingling together, doing
everything together but just for some few years back with the introduction
of the Sharia things start to look a bit different.
And further: Like I said again in those days there were churches all over but now the
churches are burnt down several times and people are afraid to rebuild
again, so there is… a kind of division, there’s more Muslims and Hausas in
the north and more Christians and non-Hausas in the South, which wasn’t
so before. In Kaduna everybody was the same. There was no Hausa, no
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Tiv, no Igbo, no Yoruba, no Christians no Muslims, like one big family.
Recently there is a break now, a division.
The causes of the violence are complex and do not concern us here directly.
Torhile sees it in terms of Muslims wanting to define themselves more
clearly and more distinctly as Muslims (via the incorporation of Sharia as
criminal law), as an issue of identity and relationships that has implications
also for Christians:
They wanted to dictate how Christians should live and most human beings
being what we are there was resistance and because of this resistance there
was violence erupting here and there. However, everybody feels that fear
of the unknown, even for those of us living in Kaduna, we still have that
fear of the unknown, because we don’t know when and how the attack is
going to come or where it is going to come from.
Torhile has intimate knowledge of the consequences of the violence having
supervised the collection (by prisoners) of the corpses of those killed in the
riots that erupted in Kaduna in February 2000. Torhile cannot remember
how many lorry loads of bodies were collected:
There were so many I can’t remember, I can’t remember. They were given
mass burial, somewhere after the airport. We used a machine to dig a big
hole and then the lorries, the army trucks and the refuse collection trucks
that were hired in town… there were so many…
Torhile explained how mass burials were preferable to private burials as a
previous private burial ceremony had sparked recriminatory violence in
another part of the country. I asked about how the fear of the unknown
affected everyday life. Torhile replied:
You see it kind of curtails people’s movement. Formerly you could go
anywhere in Kaduna at any point in time without being afraid of anything
but now people are afraid to go to some areas in town like the northern part
of Kaduna, or the north-western part of Kaduna where there are more
Muslims and more Hausas. The Christians find it more difficult to now go
there in the night time unlike before where you can move everywhere at
any point in time. Now people fear what might happen to them. You don’t
know what you will say there, that might spark off a fight and it will turn to
riot. In those days you could go anywhere, say whatever, do whatever,
drink, but now the northwestern part of Kaduna where there are no more
beer parlours, there are no beer shops - you can’t go there to drink. Rather,
the Hausas and the Muslims that live around that area come into the
southern part of Kaduna or to the northwestern part of Kaduna to
socialise… So the fear is that when you go into these areas maybe for
business or for work or to visit somebody, you are afraid because you don’t
know what might happen while you are there.
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In spite of this fear residents in Kaduna seem to go about their everyday
business as usual even in the aftermath of rioting, and when curfews are in
place. This was at least my impression even in the immediate aftermath of
the “Miss World” riots in November 2002.
I stated at the beginning of this chapter that my intention was to examine
persons in practice. Above I have given an indication that there are multiple
practices and multiple action contexts in which prison officers participate
and which frame their lives and their ways of being persons (work, church,
home - collecting corpses, visiting the sick, dressing the children).
Recognising that prison officers live lives, that are multi-faceted is a way of
demythologising and deconstructing stereotypical images of prison staff
members (cf. Liebling and Price 2001). It serves to complicate the image.
There are of course interconnections between the various facets constituting
everyday life and persons across boundaries. For example, other prison
officers are members of the Immaculate Friends, non-prison officer
members of the Immaculate Friends meet at the prison staff club for beers in
the evening, and I have already described how trainees from the school
come into the home. Sometimes movement between the respective spheres
is not smooth. There can be perceived contradictions between the activities
entailed with being a prison officer and the expectations of family members.
I wish to present a detailed example that led to one such conflict that brings
us back to the activities and practices of the prison officer and illustrates a
number of important points about the job, its image and how it is perceived
first hand. The example concerns Torhile's participation in a number of
executions.
Hangings
Whilst taking part in the advanced course at Kirikiri in 1990, because of the
training he had received in the maintenance of the gallows and his working
experience in Kaduna with condemned criminals, Torhile was summoned to
assist in the hanging of forty-seven condemned criminals. When I asked
about the background Torhile resorted to using official terminology perhaps
sensing a certain level of reprobation or distaste behind my questions:
They were persons that had been condemned by the court. They were
judicial hangings of persons who have committed a capital offence.
Having established in these terms the legitimacy of the hangings Torhile
described the reason why so many were to be executed at one time:
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I think the government wanted to reduce… then there were close to 300
condemned criminals so the letter came with their names, 47 of them…
Torhile's familiarity with the procedures and the technology was not the
only reason he gave for why he was chosen. He said it was:
… because I had already been trained and because some people run away
from it, but because I had done it, and done it, and done it at Kaduna
prison… Now I don’t think I would want to do it again, but then I really
don’t bother.
Significant here is the fact that some people run away from it but Torhile
had done it, and done it, and done it. (Despite this, Torhile actually indicates
he would probably not want to participate in hangings anymore.) His actual
job was the escort of the prisoners to the gallows, a process that can involve
resistance and scuffles with the prisoner:
Some of them don’t say anything. Some of them resist, some of them resist
and there’ll be some physical scuffles and if the resistance is too hard we
place the person on what is known as chest board. It’s a kind of stretcher
with straps, so first (you put) the person on the chest board and you strap
him across the chest and strap him across the middle section and strap him
across the shins and then carry him on the chest board to the gallows.
In the following exchange Torhile ultimately elaborates on the task of the
escort to the gallows. The exchange begins with a rather naive question I
ask about the hangman:
What kind of person is the hangman?
Well… he’s just doing his job.
It’s a rather unusual job.
It’s very unusual. He doesn’t do much work.
No, not anymore.
No, I mean the hangman even at the execution the hangman doesn’t do
much work because all the scuffling, the arguing, the dragging is done by
the escort to gallows. So what the hangman does is just put on the noose,
makes sure it is fixed correctly and then goes back to the lever, and then
operates the lever and the jaws of the gallows open and then the
condemned man drops and then the rope hangs him and then afterwards,
after operating the lever he goes back to the officer in charge and says he
has finished his job. The duties of the escort to gallows are to now bring up
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the dead body after the doctor has certified the person dead, to bring out the
body and prepare it for burial. The hangman is just operating the machine.
This excerpt helpfully tells more about the responsibilities of the escorting
officer, those tasks that Torhile himself was carrying out. His remark about
the hangman - he’s just doing his job - can equally be read as selfreferential.
I asked Torhile whether he discussed his day’s work with his
friends in the evening and he responded in a similar matter of fact way
suggesting it was no big deal:
Well, they know, they know I went to work and escort for the execution.
What do they say?
Well they don’t say anything. They don’t bother, except those who were
not officers…
One non-officer who did express an adverse opinion was a member of
Torhile's family. He went to pay her a visit but was turned away and told he
should not come to her house. He asked why but only found out the reason
two days later:
Torhile continued:
Two days after, the husband came and said that somebody came and the
person said -after drinking a lot of beer - the person boasted that he hangs
so many prisoners and that even your brother – he was talking to my aunty
– that even your brother, we work together, we do this and we do that.
It took me a very long time, so long time to convince her that I don’t do
anything like that, what the man said. All I do is just work where these
persons are kept.
This comment sounds very much like Torhile tried to back-track from his
colleague’s bragging whilst at the same time underplaying his own role in
the process in order to get back on good terms with his aunt. I asked about
whether he denied his involvement in the hangings or just toned it down.
His reply is interesting given the way in which he relates escorting the
prisoner to the gallows to escorting the prisoner anywhere else. Again the
theme is about just doing the job:
I just told her we don’t hang, all we do is just escort, just like they escort
prisoners to go and cut grass, escort prisoners to go hospital that’s what we
do - we escort prisoners to gallows and the hangman does the hanging and
afterward we bring out the corpse and prepare it for burial…
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He also explicitly addresses my concern about the relation between the task
and the person carrying out the task:
…if others too know what work goes on there I’m sure that they will be
curious to find out how do you feel. Actually you don’t feel… you are
doing a job, but like I said earlier, some prison staff will not, not for
anything do that work, go to the gallows.
Here the "just doing a job" theme is supplemented by the divorce of
emotions from practice. Later Torhile suggests that the divorce of feelings
from actions perhaps has something to do with state of mind. It is legitimate
not to want to participate. I ask whether staff are given the choice:
Can they say no? What if they are assigned to it?
Some say no.
Okay, and that’s okay? They are given the choice?
Yes, anybody who doesn’t have the mind…
I have included this example because it illustrates a number of important
points. Firstly, juxtaposed with the other day-to-day activities of Torhile’s
life it gives a more complex picture of the prison officer. It also tells us
something about the way in which prison work can be seen by outsiders or
those not familiar with prison practice and the ways in which staff
rationalise their actions for themselves and others. In addition it is useful to
realise that prison officers are not obliged to engage in such tasks if they do
not wish. This suggests prison institutions in Nigeria are not as rigid,
authoritarian and compelling/controlling as they first appear to an outsider.
Further reflections on degrees of freedom/scope of
possibilities
Torhile's accounts seem infused with a double theme. On the one hand he is
a cog in a big machine just doing his job (e.g. escorting the prisoner to the
gallows, being transferred at short notice, being promoted without selfpromotion
before his time, accepting extra responsibility but not being given
the position). On the other hand (though maybe primarily in the non-work
sphere) he is a pro-active, initiative taking, influential person.
There is a distinction to be made in terms of the degrees of freedom
available to Torhile in and outside of work. In the non-work sphere, the
qualities which make Torhile stand out in the work sphere (where "standing
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out" is not the most appropriate behaviour) are able to flourish. He is the
primus motor behind the Immaculate Friends. He is the initiator and
organiser and it is a function he is gladly granted and that seems to come
naturally. His friends say he is particularly gifted by God. In contrast, in the
prison service given his position in the hierarchy Torhile is largely
powerless to expand his own scope of possibility. Like other officers he
must obey a command to transfer, he must carry out orders for example
taking night duties in Makurdi, and staying there for Christmas.
Torhile portrays himself in the work setting as a cog in a big machine, as not
understanding his being chosen to work in the prison or his rapid promotion,
of not wishing to be recognised and have his rank acknowledged at the bus
stop. He plays down any sense that it might be due to personal qualities or
merit precisely because such factors have almost no role in the structures of
the prison service. There are very few positions that allow an officer to
stand out as different from all the rest. There is of course the position of
Controller General where at least within the ranks of the prison service one
is not subordinate to any other officers. However, even there, there is a
relation to the Minister for Internal Affairs and to government so initiative is
also limited and curtailed. Other positions that carry a degree of uniqueness
are the commandants of the four training institutions and the course coordinators.
Though course co-ordinators - the role Torhile fills without
occupying the position - are only of middle rank the nature of the job brings
with it a degree of independence and creates a network across the country.
As Torhile remarked on one occasion "everybody knows Torhile from the
training school". Every six months 380+ students pass through the school
and are then spread throughout the federation. Torhile has been there twenty
years organising and influencing the daily lives of these trainees. The
position in the training school offers the opportunity to develop a large
network and to be recognised. An opportunity to stand out is created by the
position. Yet, it is not guaranteed that the person occupying the position will
stand out. This is demonstrated by the very fact that formally speaking
Torhile did not occupy the position and the strawman was largely
anonymous. Similarly the other course co-ordinators I got to know were not
held in nearly such high esteem. Again, a combination of personal qualities
and position have made Torhile stand out as a bit different. At the same time
he uses much energy to deny or at least play down the personal qualities
side of the equation. It is possible that this is the result of a mixture of his
religiosity - a kind of self-imposed humility, but it is more likely because of
what I have already referred to as the inappropriateness in the paramilitary
context of acting above one’s station. Part of the life of the prison officer is
about waiting for orders.
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In relation to the job, Torhile presents himself as trying to fit in, as trying to
live according to the norm of not standing out, of not being anything special,
almost as fighting against his own personhood. His own active conduct of
life (clearly demonstrated in other contexts of action) is curtailed - he
curtails it himself in response to the structural demands of the system. And
this curtailment and the dynamics of it and the way they play out in his
interactions and relations to the job and to colleagues illustrate those aspects
of the prison service that he is confronted with. As I have touched on in
chapter four and will further address in chapters six and seven the
institutional practices of the training school and the prison are characterised
by a logic of anonymity and penality. The prison officer occupies a position
alongside other prison officers. The prison officer is one of many, not
individualised or personified, but anonymised and seen primarily as part of
a body of men.
Even as one moves through the service, promotion does not necessarily
grant more freedom. The possibilities for action do not increase with
seniority. The senior officer has merely more subordinates. He remains
himself in the position of a subordinate to others more superior in the
hierarchy. This form of social ordering has implications for the way
prisoners are treated (see chapter seven).
Torhile plays down the role his own personhood and actions have played in
his trajectory. Yet at the same time he has gone out of his way to, for
example, educate himself. He has pursued with vigour his interest in martial
arts. He enrolled in a business administration course at the local polytechnic
and is currently taking a computer course. He does act to further qualify
himself despite the dominant norm of the prison service that merit plays
only a minor role in relation to seniority. Generally speaking in the prisons
service it is important not to be too different. Indeed some trainees have
hidden their qualifications, or the fact that they were studying as this would
have damaged their chances of being given a job, if for example they were
perceived as better educated than the person doing recruitment. Another
example is a junior officer who was refused study leave by the Officer in
Charge (OiC) in his prison because the OiC was himself attending the
course the junior officer wished to attend. As the junior officer put it, it
would not be right for an OiC and a junior officer to share the same school
bench. It would make a mockery of the hierarchy. At one level then, the
structures governing prison practice have repercussions elsewhere.
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Torhile's trajectory is inherently tied to the trajectories of others, be they
family/kin, friends/church, colleagues/workplace. His childhood trajectory
was tied up with the movement of his family, his connections to his two
uncles, with his brother and mother and with the particular local conditions
provided by the community in the barracks. He grew up, at least as a small
boy, in an environment where relations of domination/subordination were
prevalent - he talks about the "bullies" in the barracks. His whole life (apart
perhaps from the three jobs he has as a teenager) has been lived in such a
context. Perhaps Torhile's personal trajectory can best be seen as the
trajectory of changing networks? Certainly the immediate family network
has played a large role in Torhile's movements in the last eighteen months as
he has moved back and forth between Kaduna and Makurdi in response first
to the death of his daughter, then the illness of family members.
In this discussion I have elucidated the ways in which relations of
subjectivity and structure are produced as aspects of ongoing practice.
Torhile as a unique person confronts and is confronted by the structures of
the job and his everyday life as he lives out his trajectory. Person and
practice become aspects of one another played out via ongoing participation
in practice. In the following section I explore further the everyday life of the
prison officer via two accounts of typical practice.
Accounts of typical practice
A day in the life of the prison officer I
I turn now to the promised account of a typical day in Torhile’s working
life. My concern is to trace the details of prison officer practice with eyes
open towards the relations evident between person and practice. How are
persons constituted in practice and practices constituted through persons?
Torhile begins his account from the moment he wakes up in the morning:
A normal day now, like in Makurdi, I wake up in the morning at 5, wake
up at 5 in the morning. I put on the water, put on the boiling ring, you know
boiling ring? (yes). Then I do my prayers from 5–5-30. And then from 5.30
because I am alone sometimes I boil my yam, sometimes I cook rice,
sometimes I cook beans. While the beans and yams are on fire I go to take
my bath and shave, take my bath and come back. Food is ready. I pack it in
into my flask and put it in my bag and at a quarter to 7, usually at quarter to
7 I leave home because I walk to the bus stop. It’s about 10 minutes walk
from my house, walk to the busstop and take a bus.
Torhile’s days are extremely structured in terms of time. This is not merely
an account ordered by a time-based narrative technique. It reflects a real
division of activities into strict time segments that is common to the
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structuring and ordering of time in the training schools and in the prisons.
The account incorporates Torhile’s religious practices – his prayers, his
practices of personal hygiene – his bath, and his making provision for later
physical needs – his food preparation. The fact that he must prepare food is
a product of his being away from his family. Back in Kaduna, the women
members of the household almost exclusively took responsibility for food
preparation. He demonstrates efficiency in relation to his use of time. The
water warms while he prays, the food cooks whilst he baths, and he is ready
to leave for work at a quarter to seven, his repetition - usually at quarter to
seven - serving to emphasise the regularity of this schedule and his mention
of the walk to the bus-stop taking about ten minutes serving to underline
again the significance of time for ordering Torhile’s practice.
The time-oriented routines of Torhile's everyday life bear a striking
resemblance to the routines of trainees in the school and prisoners in the
prison. He adopts a rigid schedule that is consistent with the environment
with which he has interacted through so many years. Surely this is not
accidental.
Arriving outside the prison Torhile is greeted by the armed squad guard who
salutes and orders any persons who might be present in the gate area to halt
and calls everyone to attention. A second call to attention is made as Torhile
enters the gate. The second call to attention serves not only as a signal that a
senior officer is arriving and as a mark of respect but it also communicates
to Torhile who else is on duty, specifically whether his direct superior is
present. This message is communicated to Torhile by the volume of the call
to attention. As he explained:
I will know it from the manner of the attention they will call. If he is inside
the attention will, he will call attention not so high. The command would
not be so high as to alarm him. But they would still call attention for me
and report number but if he is not there they will call a very loud attention
to alert other persons in the yard that 2iC or another Oga or rather Oga is
coming in.
The presence or not of Torhile’s Oga – his superior – is significant given
that in his absence Torhile himself becomes Oga, everybody’s Oga, not just
another Oga but the Oga, as he shows, correcting himself in the latter part
of the comment. The signal thus informs not only Torhile of his position in
the prison but it also alerts others in the prison that a senior officer has
arrived. The call to attention marks prison officers’ position in relation to
one another as well as sedimenting the quality of this relation in terms of
relations of subordination, respect and authority.
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Usually Torhile goes directly to his office to change into his uniform. He is
not obliged to stop and see anyone but sometimes he might greet the staff in
the gate-lodge:
… I don’t even need to answer the attentions, sometimes I prefer to be
polite and I stand and I say “Aha how is everybody this morning?”
This - what Torhile calls politeness - is characteristic of the man. He does
not need to even respond to the salutes but he can choose to engage with
people should he choose to. Torhile bears himself with a gentle authority
that generates a deep respect from friends and colleagues. His quietly
understated authority stems in part from the above “politeness”, a way of
utilising personal agency that invites respect and brings with it influence,
surprising in a prison culture where rule, rank and hierarchy dominate the
formal structures and organisation of working life. After changing, greeting
the officer in charge and receiving instructions, Torhile in his status as 2iC,
together with all the heads of department, that is the OiC, the medical
officer, the operations officer the welfare officer and the chief warder
embark on a regular morning inspection of the prison, visiting each of the
three wards, a., b., and c. and listening to prisoners’ complaints and getting
an impression of the current status and atmosphere in the prison:
In each cell there is a provost, a kind of president in the cell, so the prisoner
reports the number of prisoners in the cell and then if there are prisoners
with problems those who wish to see the welfare office, those who wish to
go to the clinic, those who wish to see the Oga, or wish to see me, or the
operations officer, the president reports that we have 60 or 70 or 80 or
whatever number of inmates in the cell, 5 for clinic, 5 for welfare, 2 to see
2iC, 1 to see Oga…
The provost or president is expecting the visit and has already determined
who from the cell wants to go where and to see whom. So a problem free
inspection is just a case of receiving the provost’s report, and takes less than
thirty minutes. On other occasions, the inspection can take up to two hours.
Torhile described to me the type of issues that make the inspections a drawn
out affair. It can, for example, be quarrels between prisoners in the cells or it
can be that information has to be relayed to the prisoners. This is an
innovation Torhile has brought into prison practice in his particular prison:
…sometimes if you want to make an appeal to the inmates we go round.
Sometimes the contractor who is supposed to supply garri… says “in the
market there is no garri or it’s too expensive at the market” so he wants to
substitute garri with something made with maize or with millet, so I now,
sometimes in the prison I’ve made it a point that the officer in charge talks
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to the inmates and explains to them. It’s not like the way they are used to
doing before that, whatever they give to the prisoners they take without
complaining. So I tried to change that anyway, in my prison I don’t know
about for other prisons. That prison where I work, I told the Oga if the
contractor is not bringing what he is supposed to bring I think it is just
human to inform the inmates… they know what they are supposed to eat so
if you are not giving them what they are supposed to eat I think its just
polite to let them know why you are not giving them, why they are not
eating that…
Here again we have an example of Torhile’s personhood coming through
again in the form of politeness, this time framed in terms of it being just
human to inform prisoners that their diet is to be altered contrary to
expectations. Torhile frames this innovation in contrast to the way they are
used to doing before in relation to standard previous practice. It is helpful to
trace Torhile’s use of the personal pronoun throughout this excerpt: I’ve
made it a point; I tried to change that anyway; I told the Oga; I think it’s
just human; I think it’s just polite. Torhile has tried to bring about a change
and he here describes how he has done it by presenting an argument to his
superior based on values of politeness and humanity. And in his own
practice he carries this out. He cannot speak for other prisons and he cannot
speak presumably for practice in his own prison in his absence. Such an
intervention can be seen not merely as a humanitarian gesture but also as
serving the needs of security. Food provision is a sensitive area in Nigerian
prisons and lack of food or poor food can be a reason for riots or attempted
escapes.
Following the morning inspection Torhile returns to his own small office to
take care of paper work and administrative tasks. During the course of the
day Torhile typically makes two additional, spontaneous inspection tours,
on these occasions not to talk to prisoners but to control members of prison
staff. This practice introduces the issue of maintaining staff discipline as a
part of prison officer practice. Discipline is a major theme in relation to
prison practice that will recur throughout this dissertation. Here it has to do
with staff’s self-discipline in relation to the rules governing practice.
I go round the prison twice every day to ensure that the officers are on their
beat… Sometimes they leave their beat and they come and converge at the
pavilion there and are discussing and so I go round and say “Everybody go
back to your place, go back, go back and mind your beats…”. Nowadays,
when they see me coming they already start going back to their beats. I ask
them to go back to their beats. Sometimes I shout “Why are you here? Why
are you here? Why are you not on your beat?” and threaten them with form
96.
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Form 96 is a form used for disciplinary hearings. I will not discuss the
indisciplined practice of officers that call for the use of such threats here,
except to say that Torhile’s failure to carry out such threats shows
something again about his own personal way of being a prison officer.
When I asked how much the disciplinary charge sheets were used he
replied:
I’ve never used them… because it’s not too good, for future. In 1998 there
was a rationalisation in the service and those with form 96 in their files
were all rationalised out of the service.
The formalising of a disciplinary charge via form 96 can have far reaching
consequences for members of staff. Therefore it is used only as a threat
except in cases of serious offences such as allowing escape due to
negligence, insubordination and disobedience to a lawful order. Torhile told
me of one instance when a staff member was caught smuggling Indian hemp
(marijuana) into the prison and the OiC had them charged on form 96 and
transferred to a post without contact with prisoners.
Torhile maintains discipline by making regular rounds to check up and
chivvy along his staff, without recourse to an authoritarian application of the
rule book and the charge sheet. One could say he takes literally the
invocation inscribed on the front of the lecture script for instructors that the
prison officer should strive to bring about change “by force of personality
and leadership”.
The administrative tasks that occupy the rest of Torhile’s day involve for
example dealing with staff who want to go on a personal errand in the town.
They come to him to apply for “pass” that is leave to go off the premises, be
it to go to the bank or deal with some other errand for a couple of hours or
to take leave for a couple of days. At the same time staff might just pop in to
say hello or to report an event from the prison yard. There are different
routes open to Torhile in dealing with such reports:
If it’s something I should report back to the OiC I report. If it’s something I
can deal with there, I deal with it. Sometimes the chief warder would come
in to report somebody or some warders who have left their beat or just not
come to work and then he wants some instructions from me on what to do
with these persons who have left their beats without permission.
This remark illustrates clearly the structured chain of command and the
leeway that exists for acting on own initiative. If Torhile can deal with it he
deals with it. If he thinks it should go to the OiC he reports to the OiC.
Similarly we see the chief warder, if he has not felt able to deal with a
problem reporting to Torhile. Files, and general bureaucratic business, for
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example calculating which prisoners are soon due for release and applying
to headquarters for patriation costs, also cross Torhile’s desk during the time
he is in the office. He remains occupied with these tasks until after the 13.30
lock-up when the chief warder comes and reports the results of the lock-up
and count to him. The chief warder returns at 14.30:
The chief warder now comes and reports to me and asks for permission to
dismiss the now on duty officers. I might go and inform the OiC or I might
just say go ahead. Dismiss them for the day. And then the subordinate staff
will be dismissed and then afterwards the senior officers will also go. They
will go and then after that I will go also.
Once again scope is shown for acting on own initiative. Torhile
demonstrates that he has choices to make and opportunities to act on the
basis of his own discretion. Dismissing the subordinate staff brings closure
to Torhile’s working day and he is free to leave. He changes back to mufti
and takes either the bus or gets a ride with a colleague who rides okada.
I turn now to discuss another institutional context in which Torhile had
recently worked, that is the prison training school.
A day in the life of the prison officer II
In a similar manner, though in less detail Torhile described a typical
working day in the training school. The routines Torhile follows in each
location resemble each other very much. Some are the results of personal
preference like attending mass, others are imposed from outside, like
reporting for work at 7.30. Yet, personal preference and imposition,
subjectivity and structure cannot be understood as distinct from one another.
Rather their relations are constituted together in practice (see chapter three).
And it is in practice we see how Torhile’s subjectivity is constituted in
relation to the structures that the prison service offers, through his quite
particular modes of participating in that practice. And likewise it is in
practice that we see how structures of practice are influenced and altered by
particular ways of exerting subjectivity and participating in practice.
Torhile’s days in the training school began in the same manner as when he
works in the prison:
Like in Makurdi, in Kaduna too, I wake up at the same time 5 o’clock in
the morning and busy myself around at home. Sometimes I’m doing
nothing, I just come up and preparing to go, I go to morning mass
whenever I can. I come back from mass in the morning, getting ready for
work. Sometimes by 7.30 I leave the house I just walk across, the school is
just behind the house. I just walk across to the school and as usual, just like
in Makurdi if I am coming in first, usually I come in first amongst the
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superior officers so the school comes to attention, to salute as I come into
the school and I come in and move straight to my office.
Strangely absent from this account is a mention of the family, or any of the
others in their quarters. As I mentioned earlier it was certainly my
impression that Torhile was often quite active in the household, preparing
the children for school, for example. Still, this aspect of his practice is
under-prioritised in his account which rather focuses on similarities to his
experience in Makurdi where he does indeed live alone. Like in Makurdi he
wakes early. Like in Makurdi he is greeted with a salute on arriving at work.
Like in Makurdi he moves straight to his office. Yet sometimes, also like in
Makurdi he might deviate from this pattern. At the school it is not only
about being polite and enquiring about how the day is, but of interjecting in
ongoing practice, reflecting his particular status in the school and marking
for trainees and instructors alike one of his multiple areas of expertise:
Sometimes when I come in, if the physical training is going on, sometimes
I go onto the field, make some corrections, talk to the instructors, talk to
the students and sometimes I just walk straight to my office and begin to
look at my day’s programme, my day’s programme, what to do and how to
do what has been planned for the day.
The day’s plans are made in advance so Torhile knows what to expect:
Often times, almost everything that I will do is already on the timetable so
I’ll kind of know what I will be going to do. At a set point in time I will do
it except for some incidences that will maybe require a different schedule
but otherwise just a typical day I know what I am going to do. If it is a day
that I have class I know that I must have prepared maybe the day before
whatever I am going to lecture in the class and then sometimes I come out
and go out onto the parade if the parade is on after the students have taken
their breakfast. Sometimes I come out and join the parade because I want to
keep practicing, I will want to keep the voice, the parade voice so
sometimes I take a squad and teach and command the parade and
participate in parade drill. That is just because I want to keep abreast of
what happens on the parade ground. After parade I go back to my office
and ensure that everybody does what they are supposed to do, kind of
supervise the other instructors and lecturers and ensure that everybody does
what they are supposed to do when he is supposed to do it and that they do
it properly also. Typically if I have class when it is time for class I go to
class.
Again a typical day can also show variation. Torhile kind of knows what to
expect but there are exceptions. He describes himself as being prepared in
advance for his classes. It is interesting that the reason Torhile gives for
joining in the parade is not to correct or instruct but to practice, to keep the
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parade voice. So sometimes in order to keep his hand in he does actually
take over someone else’s duties and teach, command and participate.
Actually in a manner similar to my own participation in weapons training
(cf. chapter two) Torhile also succeeds in making and keeping himself
visible both to staff and trainees. He is not a behind the scenes co-ordinator
but an active, engaged participant in practice, with a desire not to get left
behind but to keep abreast of what happens. A link can be made between the
practices Torhile describes in the first part of this excerpt and the practices
of ensuring everybody does what they are supposed to do (twice repeated).
Three factors are relevant when Torhile supervises others’ ongoing practice
– they must be doing what they are supposed to be doing, doing it at the
right time and doing it properly, three factors that also seem to apply to
Torhile’s own way of living his life. Co-ordinating for Torhile includes a
control function. It is not only about organising but also about seeing that
the organisation functions.
The shift finishes at 14.00 just like in the prison. Unlike the end of the day
at the prison that really marks an end, Torhile often returns to the school in
the evenings to prepare his lectures on computation of sentence, prison techs
or whatever. The proximity of his quarters to the school makes this informal
traversal of contexts an optimal arrangement and illustrates the merging of
professional and private time that is more a feature of life for Torhile in the
school than it is in the prison. This is no doubt a product of the different
ways in which Torhile is situated in relation to the respective practices of
each location. In relation to the training school he is on the premises and
trainees are free to seek him out. In relation to prison he is off premises and
prisoners are not free. When Torhile is not preparing his class lectures he is
likely to be found in the prison staff club or at church meetings.
In the above two sections I have introduced aspects of a prison officer’s
working life in the prison and the training school respectively. The
dynamics of training school and prison practice will emerge more clearly in
the following two chapters.
Summary
This chapter has illustrated aspects of what being a prison officer in Nigeria
involves. Some facets of prison service culture and practice have been
displayed in dynamic interplay with Torhile’s personal trajectory of
participation in them. The details of Torhile’s background and ongoing life
function to specify his subjectivity and situate him as a particular person-inpractice
with particular possibilities open to him. This account of Torhile’s
life clearly demonstrates a trajectory that is not simply through time but
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simultaneously across a diverse array of spaces, a trajectory that involves
his active participation and stance taking and which is characterised by on
the one hand the reproduction of the limits of possibility and on the other
hand the pushing back of these limits.
What can we learn from this tracing of Torhile’s trajectory through time and
across places? What are we confronted with by Torhile’s everyday practice
and the significance he grants this? It is worth emphasising that this chapter
presents very concretely a single person in practice. The concreteness of
Torhile’s life as he accounts for it speaks against abstraction. By presenting
a specific person through their own words the subject is placed centre stage,
illustrating aspects of the relations of structure and subjectivity as they are
produced in ongoing practice. As I stated at the beginning of the chapter
Torhile is not a prototypical officer. Nevertheless, his everyday participation
and the significance he grants his own trajectory confronts us with a
practice-based, person-centred version of what it can mean to be a prison
officer in Nigeria.
In chapter eight these themes are revisited as the trajectories of prison
officers are examined with reference to their move from one institutional
context to another. First of all though, I turn to explore the routines,
procedures and practices that constitute life for basic recruits in the prison
training schools.
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Introduction
Training school practice
Chapter 6 - Training school practice
Everyday engagements in socially structured, often institutionalised, daily
activity are the most powerful sites where history is made in persons as it is
made in practice. (Lave 2004a: 4)
This chapter addresses the way in which discipline mediates the relationship
between the prison officer and the training school via an examination of the
everyday practices that participants are caught up in and which invite to
particular expressions of subjectivity. In the same way in which Torhile can
not be seen as a typical Nigerian prison officer yet nevertheless an officer
whose life illustrates both unique and general aspects of prison officer life,
so the examples of practice presented illustrate aspects of training school
life that despite or by virtue of their specificity reveal something about the
ongoing social practices of training school life in general.
Drawing on the conceptual tools and approach to subjects’ participation in
social life introduced in chapter three, the presentation and analysis of
ongoing practices is informed by a focus on the generation of relations of
structure and subjectivity in contentious practice as these relations draw on
and feed into what emerges as a logic of penality that is neither external or
internal to subjects but constituted via their participation, engagement and
commitment to particular forms and arrangements of practice, that are
accounted for predominantly in terms of discipline.
I examine the way trainees are constituted as persons in practice and
constitute practices via their participation in them. I address the conditions
that frame prison officers’ participation in diverse practices, the demands
put on them and the ways in which they constitute themselves in practice
and their practice in themselves.
The examples of practice I present reveal a logic of penality that dominates
the disciplinary regime of the school and, as will emerge in the following
chapter, the prison. The chapter begins with some background introducing
the life of the training school and its character as “totally institutionalising”.
Then I introduce the dominant position parade and drill occupy in the
training school programme and some conflicts and controversies.
Subsequently the adjudication procedure as applied to trainees who break
the school rules and the associated punishments are examined before I
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introduce the ways in which politics and intrigues illustrate particular ways
in which relations of structure and subjectivity are generated. The chapter
demonstrates that prison training schools and prisons are structurally
homologous and that a common logic of penality pervades both. This
common logic is betrayed in the way trainees in the school and prisoners in
the prison are spoken about and treated in homologous ways. In addition,
the arrangements of practice that frame both groups are homologous. This
will reveal itself more fully in the next chapter where the way the logic of
penality relates to discipline and an ideology of corrections is explored in
more detail.
It is of course not surprising that we find a logic of penality, a punitive
logic, operating in the prison. What is perhaps surprising is that this same
logic undergirds training practices. What unifies the institutions and
determines the reason for this shared logic is the notion of corrections. Both
prison and training school are correctional establishments aimed at what
officers call the “moulding of characters”. This chapter examines the way
training is, to a greater or lesser extent, governed by rules and procedures
that enforce discipline and attempt to create and reproduce a particular form
of order. Dominating the chapter is the way in which discipline is
distributed and reproduced in trainees through the practices and experience
of training. This chapter and the next are an exploration of the way
discipline and a logic of penality play themselves out via the participation of
staff in ongoing but changing institutional practices.
The following descriptions and analysis are based on systematic and less
systematic participation and observation in the life of the training school as
well as on interviews with trainees undergoing training and recent graduates
(for an overview of interviews and material see latter part of appendix one).
From my quarters in the staff barracks adjacent to the school I passed
through the school on a daily basis and, as is often said in the final
culminating passing out parade, to a certain extent the school passed
through me.
In order to frame my analysis I begin by introducing the nature of everyday
life in the training school.
Total institutions?
Everyday life in the school
Conduct and activities at the training school are strictly regimented.
Training institutions are total institutions where modes of sleep, work and
play are dictated and the social organisation is (more or less) strictly
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maintained (Goffman 1961: 314). Activities follow a strict time schedule.
Trainees wake at 5.00 a.m. Dressed in sports gear – long baggy blue shorts
and thin, white t-shirts bearing the training school and prison service logo -
their first duty is sweeping and cleaning both their quarters and the
compound, including the staff barracks. This task complete, or a least the
time allocated for it run out, trainees assemble for physical exercise. At 6.50
the 385 trainees are counted, absentees recorded and those present organised
into lines and divided into six squads by squad leaders, and under the
supervision and command of an instructor taken through an intense thirty
minute work out. On every day except Tuesdays – when trainees are led on
a forty-five minute cross country run, through the deserted city streets - this
routine is upheld.
Daily inspections demonstrate a routine, ritualised, procedural, repetitive,
administrative surveillance that contributes to the generation of a disciplined
community of trainees. Dorms are overfull - eight bunks to eleven trainees
with barely space for a mattress on the floor between the bunks. A trainee at
the door calls the others to attention and declares "Reporting for inspection,
sir". A roll is called and absentees noted. One person lies sick in his bed.
Shoes are polished and lie on the foot of the beds, uniforms folded and
displayed, an explicit compulsory symbol of identification. 44
Rules and procedures control not only the structuring of the day but also the
movement of trainees. 45 Should they wish to go out of the school, on an
errand they must apply for permission from the chief discipline officer
(CDO), even to carry out such simple tasks as collecting a medical
certificate or exam certificate. Such external controls point to one element
of an apparent total institutionalisation of the training schools that
44 My own position in this inspection was somewhat inverted. No longer was I
participating at the level of trainees, but at the level of the inspection team. I was
identifying with the staff. What this brief switch entailed was access to the conditions in
which trainees lived, as well as to the formalised dynamics between training school staff
and trainees. The standard nature of this inspection ritual is confirmed in a video
documentary made at PTS Enugu and by my participation in a commandant’s inspection at
the Prison Staff College.
45 The movement of outsiders as they enter into contact with the prison service is also
circumscribed in particular ways both by procedures and the organisation of space. When I
made my first visit to Prison Service HQ to apply for permission to conduct my research, I
was struck by the hierarchy (within the organisation) which was constituted by a process of
shuffling us from one subordinate to the next. Each authority figure on each scale of the
hierarchy was protected by a bunch of their own subordinates and a particular spatial
politics of office architecture.
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interviews to a degree support and a degree reject. One female officer told
me
…in school (you) behave like a military person the whole time from when
you wake up til when you are asleep.
For some the military ethos even pervades their sleep. They are heard
shouting left, right, left, right as they sleep. Another officer, Benjamin,
described how
…this compound is quite different to the outside world, just like a
confinement.
In contrast to others another trainee, James, did not stress the confining
aspects of the training school programme:
Training is not 24 hours… one has time for oneself.
This stance is undoubtedly related to the fact that he is from Kaduna and
chooses the “confinement” voluntarily. There are elements of training
school practice and routine that suggest that trainees and training staffs’
lives are regulated, organised and arranged according to rather strict
procedures and rules for conduct. But there are also elements that suggest
that these codes of conduct are resisted and co-opted in subtle ways. Take
the disorderliness of classroom teaching for example.
In the overfull classroom where benches are squashed together with no
spaces between them at the back, trainees are in turn restless and attentive as
an armed squad member describes the mechanics of a modern rifle.
Questions are asked by a trainee at the front of the hall but impossible to
hear. Disorder breaks out as a trainee submits that four fellow trainees
should be sat at the front or sent out, presumably for disturbing him. The
four are forced to stand up at the front facing the crowd. The atmosphere is
raucous as the squad officer takes charge again and quiet falls. The four
begin to speak, expressing dissatisfaction at their treatment. They are sent
back to their seats. One trainee is preparing an assignment summarising the
contents of an earlier project as the lecturer turns to the principles of
marksmanship but the lecturer is called out and continuity is broken. The
standard model for teaching is a lecture followed by questions. The question
- answer sessions are often quite lively. Whilst the training school timetable
provides some clues as to the status of the classroom teaching the residential
nature of the training means that the classroom is just one aspect of the
structured programme. The architecture of the schools featuring the parade
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ground as central gives a clue to the significance of parade and drill, as vital
instantiations of discipline and primary ingredients of the moulding of
characters.
Drill, schooling and discipline
The corporeality of training
Marching and drill are predominant features of the six-month training
programme. On many occasions as I witnessed drill and parade, I asked
myself what all the marching instantiates? It seems necessary to give some
kind of an account of the ceremonial, militaristic ways in which discipline is
generated via these practices of drill and parade. The corporeal nature of
marching is significant, both in the sense of participant’s own embodied
performance but also in the sense of the generation of a uniform body or
unit of trainees or "men". Trainees undergoing marching and drill training
and on parade vividly present the enactment of a disciplining of bodies.
Both trainees and those doing the training speak in categorical terms about
how marching and drill is about physical fitness and about discipline. This
was my first clue as to the significance of discipline in the training.
In relation to serving their country and loving uniform reference was made,
by a group of female trainees I interviewed, to learning how to
…move in a smart way… we will move more confidently.
This reference in this context serves to link a paramilitary ethos with the
paramilitary practice of drill and parade and the emphasis on physical
training that takes up so much of training. Training is clearly not merely
about knowledge and scholastic learning. It is profoundly corporeal and
articulated as such. Another group, this time of male trainees also expressed
the fact that during training it is not permitted
…to walk sluggishly at any time.
This was explained as a means
…to portray the type of person you are coming to be.
Here the changed corporeal attitude 46 is seen as evidence of changing
character. The corporeality of training is clearly related to the corporeality
46 Here I mean attitude in its original bodily sense. The reduction of attitudes in traditional
social psychological research to individualised mental constructs is challenged by this (see
also Billig 1991).
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of correction and violence (see chapter seven). Training, it is claimed
reforms you, makes you ready, smarter. In addition, trainees attribute a
relational aspect to character change, a change that they see as part and
parcel of the training:
When you mix up with people your character changes.
Training for them is about being changed from a civilian to a military
person within a framework of discipline. In this regard another corporeal
example was given. Prior to training they did not know how to salute, now
they do. Through training trainees undergo a metamorphosis from being a
civilian to being a paramilitary. What significance does this have for their
ways of relating to civilians, a group to which they no longer belong?
Drill is utilised to encourage esprit de corps and internal discipline. One
could argue that the esprit de corps of uniformity narrowly delineates the
territory for learning. It appears to limit possibilities. Free-thinking,
resistance, and challenges to superiors are discouraged. Revealed in the
practice of drill and the relations it engenders between people (colleagues)
are ways of being, acting and participating which lend themselves to
perceiving social interaction in terms of either conformity or nonconformity
and dominance or submission.
The passing out parade
The significance of drill is emphasised in the passing out parades that
celebrate the culmination of the training and where assorted dignitaries,
friends, family and the general public are invited to see a formal display of
the disciplined officer.
My invitation to the passing out parade
Faced with all the marching and the meanings attributed to it by staff, the
question becomes not why all the marching, but why all the talk about
discipline? And how does the inculcation of particular forms of discipline
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prepare the trainee for the job awaiting them in the prison? Is the schooling
aspect of the training also directed towards discipline? I asked Torhile how
well prepared he thought trainees are for their jobs in the prison when they
complete the course. He responded:
The premise mostly, the course programme, the course outline mostly is
geared towards discipline, disciplining the officer, conditioning him to face
the tasks that will meet him in prison without complaining. Most of the
things that we do at training are just conditioning the staff to face their
responsibilities, to face their tasks.
Here we have a categorical marking of the fact that the course programme
and the framework for the course is primarily directed towards disciplining
the officer. Most significant about this remark is the qualification explicit in
the expression “without complaining”. Training and discipline, that is the
course, are not only about conditioning the officer so he is prepared for the
tasks that await him, but a conditioning so that he will take these tasks on
without complaint. This maps on nicely to a prison staff slogan that I heard
repeated many times in many different contexts: “obey before complain”.
This mantra epitomises to a large degree the disciplinary ethos inculcated by
the training. Both the slogan and my informant’s remark imply of course
that there are things that might be worthy of complaint but that complaint is
an inappropriate response. In relation to change one can wonder about the
implications of such an ethos for bringing about transformations. To
complain or not to complain is also a personal attribute of the individual
officer. It is not about knowledge as traditionally understood as being
distributed in schools. This learning of discipline targets the person. It is
about much more than knowledge.
The basic recruit course culminates in the passing out parade. The deputy
controller general and zonal co-ordinator arrive on the dot of 10.00 a.m.
entering to a fanfare to cursorily inspect the quarter guard mounted by the
armed squad. One cannot avoid being impressed by the pride taken in
parade. Nervous trainees with pursed lips and taut bodies, struggle to keep
time and synchronisation with the screeches of the marching band.
Not all trainees take part in the parade. In fact, actually less than half of
them are chosen. Criteria include whether they are good at marching, but
numbers are also limited by the numbers of ceremonial outfits available.
Some have already chosen to leave, not even bothering to wait to get their
certificates. The passing out parade is as expected and as rehearsed. The
marchers alternate between slow and quick march, accompanied by fierce
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drum beats as clouds of dust blow across the parade ground reminiscent of a
scene from the coliseum.
The slow march-past at the passing out parade
The parade commander and CDO take turns to give running commentary on
the proceedings. They describe how trainees arrived as novices and are now
departing as well disciplined highly trained officers. Following formal
inspection, a slow march past, and a quick march past (eyes right to offer
the salute), awards are presented for academic achievement and leadership
(and cleanliness), and the deputy controller general addresses the trainees on
behalf of the CGP. The parade complete, the dignitaries leave and euphoric
graduates occupy the parade ground busy packing mini buses with their
Ghana-must-go bags.
As I mentioned in chapter four the front cover of the lecture script states: we
learn:- to accept the rejected; to guide and change the misguided; to give
hope and comfort to the ruined by force of personality and leadership.
When one examines the lecture script that provides a very detailed guide for
teachers, and when one observes classroom practices it is not clear that
discipline is the key element of training school practice. That is the
schooling aspects of training do not seem to give an account of discipline,
except in the limited sense of the word having to do with obedience to
authority. According to the canonical writings of the Nigerian Prisons
Service, discipline is far from the dominating feature on the prison training
landscape that it appears to be to the ethnographer attempting to be
appropriately attuned to non-canonical accounts and practices. Yet, for staff
working at the training school, discipline is the key aspect of training.
Training is first and foremost about producing disciplined officers to be part
of a disciplined service. The discipline I observed being inculcated and
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heard staff speak of runs much deeper than rule following. Yet whilst
pervasive it is also ambivalent.
In spite of a deeply formalised structure to NPS and its presentation to the
outside world, certain potentially significant symbolic activities are not
actually granted much significance. Certificates of attendance and
completion, for example, were not distributed during the passing out parade
but unceremoniously handed out in the CDO's office in a mad crammed
rush between the parade finishing and the trainees (no longer trainees)
departing for their respective homes. This was likely due to the fact that
trainees are obliged to pay 300 naira for their certificates and the brochure
with photos of all the participants which is produced, no small sum for a
trainee about to head home.
Prior to this discussion of drill and parade I introduced the classroom
context. The form schooling takes must be understood within the dynamics
of the total institutional character of the schools, the hierarchical nature of
staff-trainee relations, the formality of contact between teachers and trainees
and the pervasive paramilitarised frame that drill and parade provides for
pedagogical and tutelary practices. How does discipline relate to the rest of
the school activities? What is the relation between the curriculum and what
actually goes on in the institution? Education has always been about more
than just acquiring the particular type of knowledge represented in books
and teaching activities so what can we say about this particular dimension,
that is discipline? Learning in training schools (in a traditional sense, that is
teaching) is ultimately secondary to discipline even though classes are
attended and assignments written and marked. In chapter seven I show how
prison practice is fundamentally about containment, about guarding, about
maintaining security. Prison practice is about imprisoning, nothing much
more and nothing much less. On this basis the fact that discipline has such a
dominant role in training practices can hardly be seen as accidental or
incidental. The question becomes not so much why discipline but why
“schooling”? Benjamin described how academic aptitude is seen as a sign of
good character. This is revealed by the use of academic tests to choose the
trainees to occupy the key mediating positions between the student body and
instructors. Academic aptitude as a sign of good character offers a link
between my question “why schooling?” and the practice of character
moulding that staff claim training is all about. Academic aptitude becomes
linked with good character and good discipline. Education is an alternative
disciplinary strategy. Education/schooling is a tutelary form of discipline
that compliments the corporeal discipline instantiated on the parade ground.
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Despite the routines, rules and structures governing training school practice
and the time spent learning and rehearsing drill as a means of instantiating
and instilling order and uniformity, conflicts and controversies cannot be
ruled out.
Conflicts and controversy
The closing rituals at Kaduna gain added significance given the events of
the days leading up to the final parade. During this period, the trainees
gradually wound down their activities and two other forms of ritualised
celebrations were enacted. One of these was surrounded in controversy, and
a splitting of the trainee body. The other, a celebration in the real sense of
the word, features the female trainees in exuberant mood, shouting and
laughing. The sounds come from within the dorm where, as a man, I had
never dared venture. The atmosphere contrasted sharply with the spirit of
decorum I had grown familiar with. The women were auctioning off their
old clothes, socks, sweaters, anything they felt they had no further use for.
This apparently spontaneous celebratory action contrasted sharply with the
way in which a formal party was organised, that struggled to mirror
formalised practice as epitomised, by for example the passing-out parade.
Let me begin by explaining the controversy relating to this party, as it was
explained to me by one of the participants. Explaining why there were so
few trainees at the party, a trainee whom I call John gave an account of a
disagreement between the head student and his deputy. The deputy head boy
wanted “the course” (a collective identity – the course participants as a
collective are granted agency) to leave a legacy and decided that all students
should be compelled to pay 100 naira. Students were not in agreement but
certain students perceived as blocking the process were involuntarily named
as committee members for the arrangement. John was one of them and he
protested vigorously about the mandatory payments. Yet it was his cdplayer
that was used, and he himself was DJ. Many students who refused to
pay a contribution did not, however, feel it appropriate to attend. The
arrangement illustrates splits within the student body, as well as conflict
between the two students who provide the link between the student body
and the administration of the school. The fragmentation of the student body
is claimed to reflect what some students describe as a kind of crisis in the
school since the training officer was transferred (see later in this chapter).
Juxtaposed with the passing-out parade, this account illustrates that conflict
and controversy thrive in the prison training schools despite emphasis on
discipline. That is discipline does not do away with conflict, though as
discipline is formally performed, conflicts are disguised. The uniform body
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of men and women marching and displaying their stuff is performance.
Indeed it is an instantiation of what the paramilitary ethos wants the prison
service to be. It is an attempt to instil and display unity and discipline, yet at
the same time a hint of that unity’s inevitable absence. Especially when
contextualised by the events of the day before.
At the poorly attended party, tensions within the school were also expressed
by staff representatives. Rather than pure celebration it contained
components of recrimination and complaint directed at students. The deputy
commandant utters a few formalities, is presented with gifts to the school
(an antenna + high table cloth) and to HQ Abuja, and the course officer
lambasts the gathered students in relation to the absence of some students.
The deputy commandant in turn takes the opportunity to criticise the
trainees for not handing in all assignments, and adds that since the
commandant’s interview had not been conducted, trainees should feel able
to send their comments in. A member of directing staff from PSC arrives
and is quickly co-opted by the master of ceremonies. The visiting officer is
described as a member of directing staff from the staff college honouring
the training school with his presence. (He was actually there to see me).
After the formal speeches there is music and dancing.
So far, I have introduced discipline as suggested by parade and drill but
queried its hegemony based on ongoing conflicts and controversies. An
important function in the life of the school and the everyday lives of trainees
is performed by the chief discipline officer (CDO). I wish now to consider
his function as well as practices of adjudication and punishment.
Disciplinary practices
Introducing the chief discipline officer
The CDO lives in the new barracks, 5 minutes’ walk from the training
school, on the way to the staff club. He is married with a daughter and is the
godson of Torhile, from the same tribe. The CDO’s particular function in
the school is central to the running of the school. As the chief warder
oversees the day to day running of the prison, so the CDO oversees the day
to day running of the training school, particularly with regard to aspects
relating to the students’ day to day needs, requests, and ways of relating to
the rules of the institution. As his title implies, disciplining trainees is a key
aspect of his function, yet discipline is not only about adjudicating and
punishing. It also necessarily implies broader aspects of trainees’ welfare
and conduct.
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School discipline: adjudication and punishments
The CDO is midway through adjudicating on the cases of some trainees
who returned late from a midterm break. Sitting behind his desk, in his
rather cramped office, shared with two assistants, he calls the name of the
next trainee (they are waiting outside the open door) who is escorted in by
two female prison officers, and made to stand before the CDO’s desk, the
female officers remaining in attendance. A radio sends off noisy static and
staff members sharing the office come in and out, contributing to a sense of
interruption and disturbance, a kind of informal formality. Adjudications are
clearly not perceived as personal or private. 47 The trainees typically spoke
of illness or the death of a relative. Other offences include failing to sweep,
lateness to class, and for men, failure to barb hair ready for inspection. The
CDO is combative as he listens to the undocumented accounts of absence:
How can I know your brother is dead?… he died Monday, you buried him
Friday, mourned for a week... and rested another week...?
The trainees are instructed to salute, and then reprimanded for saluting with
hand whilst not wearing their caps. What they should do is adopt a braced
position, shoulders back, back upright. This illustrates the way in which
postural subservience is inculcated in trainees apparently at every available
opportunity. The style is inquisitorial. Punishment seems almost inevitable.
(Arthur (1991) describes this as a common feature of military regimes). And
the spatial dynamics of staff and trainee in the cramped office appear
important (see also spatial dynamics and arrangements in admission settings
– chapter seven). The process reinforces the subservient position of trainees
in the school, in this instance being given a specific role as the accused, the
one in the wrong. In many ways the form and procedure mirror the form of
the admissions board proceedings in the prison. An assumption of guilt and
the inevitability of punishment are two key facets of the common logic of
penality found in the training school and the prison. But I will come to these
practices first in the next chapter.
Despite the inquisitorial style the CDO expressed ambivalence about his
role. Following a subsequent adjudication, this time of two trainees who had
been caught climbing the fence to buy food whilst failing to wear a name
tag, he told me he did not always like punishment and that he had it in mind
to forgive them. This softer line should perhaps be understood in the light of
47 I wondered whether my surprise at the “publicness” or lack of sanctity of proceedings
was a product of my own individualistic perspective. Why should it be necessary to shield a
person whose case is being adjudicated? Perhaps there is a sense that it is also about being
publically accountable?
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the CDO’s frustration that he had just found out that he had been bypassed
in a disciplinary matter by the armed squad member responsible for
weapons training. Two trainees as a result of an unknown infraction had
been detained in the prison overnight. The CDO felt his jurisdiction had
been trespassed on and that the punishment was too much. In his frustration
he remarked that the fact that the armed squad have guns and tear gas make
them feel they have power beyond themselves. As well as contextualising
the CDO’s own wish to forgive the current rule breakers this incident also
indicates some of the rivalries that exist between groups of staff, as well as
the plasticity of the procedures, that despite appearing on paper quite clear
and formal are circumvented rather often in practice. 48
The adjudications book provides a stark illustration of the inquisitorial
approach to school discipline already described. The assumption again is of
guilt. The intention, before the facts are established, is punishment. The log,
recording proceedings verbatim, indicates that there is an adjudicating
officer and a prosecuting officer, an offence, a plea and an arraignment. This
juridical terminology cloaks some fairly petty logic, as will be shown below.
Most offences are absenteeism. The standard excuse is sickness without
letting the school know or having a medical certificate. Below is an excerpt
from the adjudication log:
Trainee: I lost my grannie. Moreover my baby was sick. I tried to
communicate, the radio message in my command was bad.
Adjudicating officer: Are there no other means of communication?
Trainee: I tried the prison through phone but to no avail.
Adjudicating officer: Is radio message or telephone the only means of
communication in the federation?
Trainee: It isn't.
Adjudicating officer: don't you think that you would have exhausted all
avenues to inform the authorities? Avenue like EMS, DHL or delegate
someone to come on your behalf if you really valued the job?
Trainee: I am sorry.
48 This was the case in the sense that the armed squad officer had apparently disciplined the
trainees without a formal adjudication and without even informing the CDO who was
responsible for training school discipline. This was emphasised even more strongly when
the officer in charge of the prison failed to release the trainees until the unit commander
came. The tension between apparent formality and actual circumvention appears again and
again.
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Findings: I discovered that the offender didn't really value the job. If she
did she would have sacrificed even to the point of spending her last
penny to ensure that she informed the authority. I see a very serious
laxity on her part.
Recommendations: The offender should be made to repeat the course as a
price for her nonchalant attitude towards the job and to serve as an
example for others to learn.
(Rank of offender: assistant inspector of prisons; Offence: 1 months
absence).
The above excerpt introduces quite clearly the idea that the trainee, at least
on occasions is characterised as offender in need of punishment. In more
subtle ways, within the practices of the training school the construction of
the category trainee mirrors the construction of the category prisoner. The
underlying structures and practices of the training school and the prison are
similar. And more importantly trainees name and speak of them in the same
terms. Even John’s claim that training was a “waste of time” is a powerful
allusion to the “doing of time” commonly associated with prisoners’
experience. Similarly some directing staff at the staff college describe their
posting there as penance or punishment. It is possible to see the training
school as prison and the prison as training school. Training for example,
begins for real once trainees return as fully trained officers and are given
responsibility for tasks previously kept from them. Their ways of learning
practice are both situated and relational. Senior officers play a key though
ambiguous role in training newly trained staff in situ. (See also chapter
eight).
Newly trained officers stationed in prisons also become subject to
punishment. The following account illustrates the way in which the logic of
penality ties into an ideology of corrections that is seen as necessary.
Gideon describes how
… working here as a beginner there are some articles that you bring in that
you are not supposed to, like magazines for inmates to read. It is not good
because there is some information that it’s not good for them to know
because if they get to know the information it will be a problem, they will
try to react. When they react it could cause a problem in the yard. So if you
have done such a thing and your superior officer gets you he’ll give you a
punishment…
And that happened to you?
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Ah, well it happened. I was corrected and I took the correction. It is good to
do the wrong thing sometimes, when you do the wrong thing sometimes
you get corrected, you be perfect. If you keep on doing something and
nobody corrects you, you won’t know where you are going. It’s good to do
something and somebody talks to you, says “This thing you are doing is
wrong, do it this way”. I myself, I did it one time but I was corrected. I’m
very happy now. I can teach somebody: “Don’t do this, do this, do that”.
This is a fascinating rationalisation of having fallen victim to punishment
that ties in perfectly with the general logic of penality and discourse of
correction that I am endeavouring to trace. Of interest too is the claim that
having been corrected one can correct others. This is the logic of penality as
worked out in the training school as a way of preparing recruits for the task
of correcting prisoners. Having done wrong, been punished/corrected the
victim is now well qualified to teach others, and presumably to correct and
punish them should they unwittingly do wrong. (Prisoners of course have
already done wrong and are in need of punishment/correction). For Gideon
it is not training, or having things “explained” that allows him to “know
where he is going”, but the chance to make mistakes and be corrected in
practice. This was spelt out even more explicitly by Ezinma, who described
how the
…trainee officer must first be corrected…training helps me to know how to
correct inmates… training is for correction and to be security minded…
Some trainees claim they are mistreated during training and that training is
something to be endured. Others describe relations with instructors as
cordial. These tensions seem to suggest that defining mistreatment is
contentious. Who has the power and legitimacy to define mistreatment? The
short answer is that it is those higher in the hierarchy, that is those dishing
out the “mistreatment”. So "victims" are silenced and their victimhood is
reproduced - except trainees do not (all) see themselves as victims but as
persons called to endure. Mistreatment is part of punishment which is an
inevitable part of corrections.
With regard to the assumption of guilt and the inevitability of punishment,
Arthur (1991), in an important article tracing the historical development of
penal policy in West Africa, suggests that in general terms military
governments gave rise to inquisitorial styles of justice in “British” West
Africa where guilt is assumed and punishment inevitable, in contrast to
civilian regimes that operate with adversarial systems where the assumption
is innocence until proven guilty. My work suggests otherwise, at least at the
level of practice. Of course the civilian mode of government is relatively
new in Nigeria (1999) and the legacy of military dictatorship since
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independence is strong. It would seem that ideas of due process and
innocence until proven guilty are slow to be taken up. The very fact that the
prison service is a para-military organisation would point to the likelihood
that the military style of inquisitorial justice is likely to remain in place for
some time to come. Here we have a challenge to attempts to bring about
change.
Punishments given following adjudication are rather standard. Some male
trainees are made to dig a hole to dump refuse in. There is only one spade so
the six men take turns, those not digging, watching. Another six or so sit
with picks, apparently taking a break from unblocking a drainage stream.
The women do less strenuous work, cutting grass, tidying rubbish, and
sweeping. A female trainee who was carrying out her punishment responded
to my questions about her punishment in the following way:
"It's not good Sir", she replied deferently.
"You see it as unjust?" I queried
"Yes Sir".
"What you told was true?" I continued.
"Yes, but he insisted I do the punishment", she replied.
These are feelings of resigned injustice. I hesitate to call it resentment. The
expression "it is not good" is a kind of calculated understatement, marking a
territory midway between a sense of personally being treated unjustly and
recognition that such is the nature of training school practice.
Whilst this female trainee’s punishment involves weeding the flower beds
the men’s punishment (as a group) can be characterised in terms of them
practicing a kind of “organised non-compliance”. They do not actually
work. They say the work is hard, excusing their lack of labour. The
supervising staff are not supervising either, but laughing and joking with the
trainees. Three other staff members wander over and set the trainees back to
work, adopting a confrontational style that ends in laughter. On another
occasion one group of men prior to inspection, had been selected to appear
before the adjudicating officer. They joke with me asking whether I would
plead for leniency. Since their crime was failure to sweep outside my
quarters I joke I ought to be the prosecutor. They take the approaching
adjudication rather lightly as did the unbarbed culprits also selected for
adjudication. They joke I should join them because of my beard.
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These examples seem to suggest that trainees do not take their “crimes”
very seriously. The manner in which punishments are supervised does not
match the manner in which justice is meted out to trainees who break the
rules. A tension is apparent between the letter of the law and its application.
This is a deep-seated tension in the paramilitary organisation of the training
school. On the one hand training is all-embracing and totalising. On the
other hand both trainees and staff transgress the rules and norms in many
small, everyday, routine ways. (Rule breaking/bending rather than rule
keeping is the norm, rather than the exception.) The way in which
punishments are supervised in a relaxed, lackadaisical manner, in contrast to
the harshness of the adjudication procedures is but one example of this.
Punishment is not the important part of the process that one might have
imagined. Rather the process of being assigned punishment is the
subjectifying, character moulding exercise. The punishment itself is
surprisingly secondary at least in the training school.
Welfare in relation to disciplinary practices
I mentioned above that the CDO is not only responsible for maintaining
discipline but also for attending to the welfare needs of the trainees. It is
more accurate to present this not as a contradiction, i.e. of discipline versus
welfare, but as an understanding of discipline that includes welfare and vice
versa. The CDO’s dual role is illustrated as he is called one night to assist
with a trainee taken ill with suspected appendicitis. Later that day, I traced
the CDO’s tracks from school to clinic, to hospital, to prison hospital, back
to hospital, together with the patient and the “deputy head boy” of the
school. 49 The CDO patiently accompanies the patient from school to
scanning to hospital to prison hospital and then back to the first hospital.
The CDO’s job involves, and person embraces, two tasks, control and care.
There is no contradiction between these dual functions for the CDO. This
lack of contradiction is mirrored by the understanding of some prison staff
that rehabilitation of criminals must involve a form of correction with a
corporeal element. Humanistic impulses combining with mundanely violent
practices appear contrary to the Western observer but quite natural to the
prison staff I interacted with (see chapter seven). The journey taken with the
patient also illustrates a solidarity existing between trainees as two trainees
accompany the patient, myself and the CDO as we journey back and forth.
49 My role in the proceedings was ostensibly as driver (an example of access to practice by
default).
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As indicated in the introduction to this chapter and in my description of the
parties at the end of the course, the training course was disrupted by
intrigues and local prison politics. I turn now to an account of these
intrigues.
Training school politics / intrigues
The Nigerian Prisons Service is a bureaucratic, paramilitary, hierarchical
organisation employing at least 19,000 officers in a variety of different
institutions. Not surprisingly, in such a large organisation, personal rivalries
and jealousies often become played out in contexts of institutional crisis.
One such crisis, reported in the local newspaper, The New Nigerian, was to
have repercussions for Torhile, my host at the staff barracks. It was to result
in his transfer from his job as training officer/course co-ordinator at the
school and his reallocation to a position as second in command of a prison
six hours’ drive from Kaduna and his family. In my account of these
contentious events I will attempt to raise my analysis above the effects on
individuals and instead focus the discussion on how this situated incident
and the repercussions serve to illustrate aspects of training school practices
and relations.
It is Sunday morning, the day after I moved into Torhile’s quarters when
Torhile briefly declares he is to go to HQ in Abuja regarding “some
allegations”. He does not go into detail, remaining illusive saying it is “a
long story”. I am curious but, hardly knowing the man, I do not pursue the
issue. However, on his return from HQ, as we share a beer in the staff club
he recounts his version of events in what I describe in my notes as “a frank
but complicated account of betrayal, disappointment and politics”.
My own account of the incident and its consequences will clearly be seen to
be partial, in spite of the fact that the story is pieced together from a
multitude of accounts – the newspaper report, trainees’ remarks, including
interviews with trainees who were participants in the event itself, and
ongoing discussions with Torhile, as the post-event repercussions unfolded.
The New Nigerian on Sunday (August 18 th 2002, Thomas Adejo) reported
the case, on its front page under the headlines Prisons Chiefs in mess -
Recruits hired to vote in party primaries. (At this point it is worth recalling
the intensity of feeling that politics and the democratic process provokes in
Nigeria). I cite the article in some detail to give a flavour of the way the
media portrayed the incident. Then I will supplement the account with
reference to trainees’ perceptions of events:
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An uneasy calm now permeates the Prisons Staff Training Schools in
Kaduna, following findings that some of its top officers were involved in a
racket of renting out recruits to politicians to swell the number of voters at
party primaries. One such deal blew open last week. In it 150 trainees were
ordered to vote for a candidate in last month's People's Democratic Party
(PDP) local government primaries in Kaduna. New Nigerian on Sunday
learnt that one of the aspirants for chairmanship of Kaduna North Local
Government (names withheld) had connived with the affected officers to
supply him with the recruits at a fee in order to ensure victory.
The politician was said to have paid 150,000 for the deal. A reliable source
told the New Nigerian on Sunday that the officers who were bribed a few
days to the election day, drafted the students at about 6 o'clock in the
morning on the day the primary elections were held. According to him, the
students were packed into the school truck without them knowing where
they were going, adding "many students thought they were going for
fatigue training because it was when our former Comptroller general was to
be pulled out of the service."
The source added that the students were astonished when they were taken
to a polling booth where the primaries was to be held. The elections could
not, however take place, the source said…
This account is worth examining in itself. It begins by describing the
current, changed atmosphere in the school – “an uneasy calm”. The
reference to “findings” evokes a sense of discovery and enquiry. The
culprits (top officers – slightly misleading given that one was a physical
training instructor, though the other was a former CDO) arrange for trainees
to be transported to a voting ground, where they are instructed to indicate
their support for a particular delegate. The meeting was about choosing the
PDP’s representative for the position of Chairmanship of the local
government so it was not a between-party meeting but a within-party
meeting. This suggests again the intensity of rivalries and the importance of
controlling the workings of the democratic machine even within political
parties. The “conniving” and the exchange of cash for supporters can be
viewed as a form of lobbying by “brown envelope”. 150,000 naira is a
considerable sum (over 1000 US dollars). The officer in question claims
after the event that he is actually only given a pittance. The astonishment of
the trainees is understandable especially given the fact that the school to my
knowledge does not have a truck, yet their belief that they were to be taken
for extra physical training in view of the pulling out parade is plausible.
There is dramatic irony given the fact that the elections fail to take place,
after all.
A trainee from the school described his own involvement as one of the
trainees chosen and delivered. As an armed squad member he initially
describes how when he arrives at the polling station, shocked to discover
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what is going on he scouts the terrain and feels it is unsafe. He later
describes how local youths subtly brandished knives in a threatening
manner. John is in no doubt that the barbed heads of the prison recruits
clearly give away their identity as either prison or police recruits. Uneasy as
he is, he leaves the scene and goes to town returning only later to the school
after all the others were back.
When the commandant of the school hears about the events an enquiry is set
up that concludes that Torhile, given his status and influence and his
position as training officer/course co-ordinator must have known about the
“hijacking” of the trainees. This claim is given credence by the fact that one
of the officers implicated, has in his own confession told how he instructed
trainees that Torhile had given his approval. The enquiry, whilst casting
aspersions in the direction of Torhile, also recommends that all officers who
have served more than five years at the school be transferred. It is under this
directive, rather than as a direct punishment, that Torhile is ultimately
transferred. 50 The sacrificing of Torhile has repercussions not only for him
and his family but also for the school. Trainees and members of staff repeat
on many occasions how the school falls apart in his absence, that he had
been the driving, organising force behind training practices and that in his
absence there is no longer any coherence. They use phrases such as
“everything is spoilt”, “the image of the school is diminishing”. Not
everyone agrees who is to blame but there is certainly a consensus to be
gleaned that the episode and the transfer of Torhile affects the school
adversely.
At the same time ruptures begin to show in the staff group. Some officers
threaten to return to their stations in protest at Torhile’s transfer, likely a
gesture of solidarity or loyalty. Torhile urges them not to, since it would
appear as though he has instigated it and further smear his name. These
groupings and demonstrations of loyalty across ranks and positions illustrate
the informal networks and practices which imply resistance, indeed
plasticity in the apparently hardcore, unmalleable, impenetrable,
organisational and political structures of the service.
In this instance Torhile urges caution and discourages resistance. He
harbours no bitterness, nor anger, at least not at those who had taken the
trainees. On the way home from the staff club, one evening Torhile and I
50 For me, the logic that because of his role, function and status in the institution, he must
have known about what was going on can equally be applied to the commandant and the
deputy commandant. It is perhaps no co-incidence that the deputy commandant authored
the enquiry report and chose to let the buck stop at Torhile.
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stop to buy suya on a street corner. We wait until the meat is done and
whilst waiting Torhile is drawn aside by a young man who subsequently
pays for our suya. He is one of the officers who ordered and took the
trainees to the political meeting, actually the one who invoked Torhile's
name to legitimate the project. He wants to ensure that bygones are bygones
and that Torhile bears no grudge. He is given this reassurance.
And indeed, despite the freshness of the news that Torhile is to be
transferred, everyday life continues as usual. That evening I am introduced
to members of the “thrift club”, meeting on the veranda of our shared
quarters.
Summary
In this chapter I have examined the institutional nature of training.
Discipline, particularly corporeal discipline, has been shown to have a
fundamental role in training practices. Yet, the juxtaposition of the standard
practices of drill and adjudication with the very specific example of prison
intrigues and local politics illustrates that whilst training school life is
organised around a concept of discipline, actual practice shows a discipline
that is far from hegemonising. Most significant in this chapter has been the
revelation that a logic of penality pervades the disciplinary practices of the
school. Even the ultimate transfer of Torhile in the case of the intrigues
illustrates this. Discipline, penality and correction are three integrated
themes that are vital for an understanding of training school practice. It is
within practices dominated by these themes that prison officers are created
as particular subjects ready to carry out their duties in the prison yards. In
the following chapter these themes are pursued more rigorously in specific
relation to everyday prison practice.
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Chapter 7 - Prison practices
This chapter considers prisons and prison practices. The descriptions of
prison formations, their structure and atmosphere, presented in chapter four
serve as background to the following descriptions and analysis of specific
everyday prison practices, given that everyday prison practice cannot be
understood in isolation from the structures and arrangements that frame
practice.
In this chapter the same themes as in the previous chapter are pursued via an
examination of the events and episodes of everyday life peculiar to the
prison. The chapter takes the reader on a journey beginning outside the
prison with an account of the delivery of a large contingent of prisoners to
the prison, following four days of rioting and violence. Then the daily
practices of prison as seen from the gatelodge are introduced and analysed.
This includes an analysis of the dynamics between staff and prisoners as the
latter are escorted in and out to court, to work and to freedom. Finally via an
examination of practices in the records office and admissions boards I
introduce the concept of mundane violence and the challenge this presents
to attempts to bring about change in the prisons.
I examine the generation of relations of structure and subjectivity via the
twin themes of ordering and othering. The particular practices of ordering
utilised by staff in particular ways tie in to ways in which staff maintain
distance between themselves and prisoners and thereby maintain and sustain
a particular sense of their own subjectivity and that of others. There are
processes of identification and anti-identification at work. These are
particular aspects of person-in-practice and history in person.
Prisoner delivery as public spectacle: an ordering
practice
In November 2002 a new chapter opened in the apparently perpetual
Kaduna crisis. 51 Violence and rioting erupted following the burning of the
51 Violence is not new to Kaduna. But it is somewhat unusual that conflicts of this nature
are given such international media coverage as was the case with respect to this set of
events. Africa remains a forgotten – and when remembered, misrepresented - continent.
One cannot avoid the conclusion that CNN would not have reported live by video telephone
from Kaduna had there not been a link to the Miss World pageant and an opportunity to
portray Muslims as fanatical and violent. True there had been protests from Muslim groups
about the Pageant especially about it being held during Ramadan, but these protests did not
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offices of the newspaper This Day after an article, linking the Prophet
Mohammed with the contestants at the Miss World beauty contest
scheduled to be held in Abuja, was adjudged inflammatory. A spate of
rioting and killing first died down after four days or so. From Wednesday
night through Saturday the city was in crisis. 52 A curfew was established
restricting movement in the town. As dusk approaches people begin to move
hurriedly towards their final destination, traffic thins considerably and by
18.00 virtually disappears. In the area of the prison barracks, cars and
people are not totally absent. Police, military and prison staff continue to
venture out though mainly only on official business or to return to their
homes. It is odd to see streets deserted, cars and vendors all absent and an
unusual stillness hovering. Inside the barracks, it is more crowded than
usual, the presence of a number of displaced persons – locally called
refugees - increasing the population.
There are many knock-on effects of the violence. Death has come to Kaduna
yet again. Homes and possessions are lost. Persons have lost members of
their immediate and extended families, and have been displaced. Security
agencies have been given carte blanche to utilise whatever force is
necessary to ensure continued calm. There is a danger perhaps that “states of
crisis” such as these grant security agencies a degree of discretion about the
result in violence in other parts of the country and the controversy had simmered for a few
months. The offensive newspaper article was most likely just a trigger. Perhaps political
manipulators saw an opportunity to undermine the Kaduna state government by sponsoring
further trouble. Perhaps the unemployed, poverty-ridden youth saw an opportunity to
engage in some looting and burning and took it. Both religion and ethnicity are invoked as
a kind of shorthand by (especially the Western) media to make sense of incidents such as
the Kaduna crisis. Mostly I feel this functions to disguise the complexity of conditions on
the ground and distract attention from the complicity of Western countries in global
inequalities. Political violence in Nigeria is typically naively described in the Western
media as religious, pertaining to conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Whilst the
violence clearly has religious overtones it is misleading to polarise the conflicts in these
terms alone. The religious rhetoric utilised by respective parties in the conflicts is largely a
means to an end in a complex competition for power and control. Articulations of faith
dominate the social and political landscape and whilst this might be strange to a Western
secular press it should be understood within its own context.
52 I had planned to be there on the Saturday but it was impossible to get reliable up to the
minute information. Reports indicated over 200 dead and 30,000 displaced from their
homes. I judged it safe to drive to Kaduna on the Monday and was surprised to find visible
conditions on the ground appeared very normal. It was an anxious drive, given the fact that
just prior to leaving I read an account that motorists had been attacked in the last days on
the roads entering the town. But I had good data that the town, despite tensions, was “quiet
and safe”. The security forces were in control. (Sometimes this reassurance is enough to
make me feel nervous).
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use of violence, that feeds into the insatiable hunger of such agencies to
abrogate to themselves a power that such a monopoly on violence
authorises, which perhaps goes beyond what is necessary in a so-called
democracy. One can fear that the violence of “hoodlums” – as this violence
was portrayed - grants a heightened legitimacy to the use of repressive force
which becomes somehow further institutionalised and more difficult to
relinquish once peace is restored. This is not healthy for the security
agencies or for democracy, civil society or human rights.
The sound of gunfire provides the signal for the living room, where I am
reading, to empty. It is a signal to be curious, not to hide under the bed. The
initial firing of the shot marks the blocking of one carriageway of the road
by police vehicles fifty metres or so to either side of the prison gate. A white
pick-up driven by armed police blocks one side, a black police pick-up
blocks the other side and around twenty gun-toting police, armed squad and
soldiers cover the area around two other bigger, open, black maria-type
transport trucks parked in front of the gate, weapons at the ready. Prison
school trainees huddle at the locked gateway to the school and peer over the
wall, straining to see what is going on. Arrestees are unloaded from the
trucks. A young woman remarks that these are the ones causing the trouble.
I reply they are the ones caught! There is a fine distinction between those
who participated in the riots, those arrested and those arrested who survive
long enough to make it to the prison. No doubt some have been shot on
sight and others fail to make it out of police detention. The arrestees are
described by bystanders as useless, without a life, they are beggars, maybe
paid 500 naira (< 4 US dollars) to fight and kill. The violence is described as
a mixture of political, religious and criminal violence. Attributions are
multiple. And these attributions function undoubtedly to distance speakers
from the killing and the violence (it's not ordinary citizens like me/I would
not act this way. And besides, they have not only killed and destroyed
property but have also further damaged Nigeria's reputation and spread
disillusionment about the state of the country…).
The arrestees are offloaded and made to lie down head to butt on the
ground, literally lying over each other in a row of bedraggled flesh, the
person behind disabling the one in front, in front of the prison gate. They lie
very still, clearly in fear - what would instil such fear? As they rise to be
escorted through the front gate of the prison they resemble a perverse
version of one of those trust games where you stand around in a circle and
then sit down on the knees of the person behind you until everyone is seated
on the person behind them. The circle usually collapses and it is this heap
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that the bodies resemble as they untangle themselves from each other, dust
dropping from tattered clothes.
The gatelodge at Kadnua prison
In the above account I operate with a stereotype of the swaggering, guntoting
cop revelling in his confirmed and legitimated status. It is an image of
a reactive enforcer just waiting for a crisis to occur to shore up an
institutional identity. It is a stereotype. I don’t have evidence for it. In fact I
have not, for example, interviewed any police officers and the armed squad
guys I spoke with at this time were relaxed, a little bored and not entirely
happy with the idea that they were on a twenty-four hour shift. I suspect the
gun-toting swaggering cops are conforming more to an image they feel they
have to live up to. Being the swaggerer is about projecting an image of
“devil may care” bravado, of instilling fear into potential miscreants, of not
revealing one’s own fears. If they gave me a gun and put me on the back of
a pick-up I’d try to look like Rambo too, especially if people were being
killed in the vicinity by machete-toting, knife-wielding youths. Appearances
matter to the identities of the people concerned, to their possibilities for
action and to the action possibilities of others. Security agencies are meant
to be able to affect the action possibilities of others by their potential
recourse to violence and presumably also by projecting this potential into
the public domain. Thus appearances are deceptive and not representative,
at least not literally. But they do tell a story. About archetypes, reflection
and dialogical relations between security enforcers and intended recipients
of security.
Three batches of arrestees were delivered in the manner described above.
Later, inside the prison a row of arrestees sit awaiting their formal
registration and reception, looking less fearful than they had being herded
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in. Up to 200 new residents have been delivered. The prison population is
up to 1004. The OiC tells me of how ecstatic the prisoners are to arrive in
his yard as opposed to the police detention places spread around the town,
where they get maybe only one meal a day and are likely treated harshly.
Above I have hinted at the spatial politics of prisoner delivery, the ordering
and positioning of prisoners and officers/soldiers and the way these
prisoners become a spectacle as they are viewed by outsiders. The rest of
this chapter explores prison practices behind the walls, that is the conditions,
situations and relations that such prisoners as those described above are
confronted with.
Further ordering practices: gatelodge routines
This account of five hours spent in the gatelodge of Kaduna prison is
reconstructed from my field notes which were made on location. When I
arrive just before 7 a.m., I tap on the metal grill summoning the gate-opener
to the spy window. The unlocked padlock is slipped from the latch and I am
allowed through. I had explained the previous day that my intention was to
sit in the gate office – nothing more, nothing less - so I settle myself down
in the small reception office where I can see the reception desk and the
opening to the gate, through which the senior inspector watch staff entering
and leaving. 53
Basically there is a staff of three on the gate - the gate opener, receptionist
and supervisor. The gate opener sits on a high bar stool on the public side of
the counter. There is a built in walk-in cupboard beside him, resembling a
pantry where keys hang. Hanging on the wall behind the counter are four
antiquated helmets that are surplus to requirements since there are no
motorcycles available to prison staff. There is an antique manual telephone
that cannot be thrown away because it is government property. Walls are
dirty with peeling paint and the gate opener’s stool has a broken leg, whilst
the notice board has holes in it. There is little by way of overt security
measures apart from walls and gates and the odd baton. Armed squad
officers outside carry tear gas pistols and rifles.
53 This is a rather classic formulation of arriving, settling and observing - the stock in trade
of the ethnographer. In the subsequent descriptions I have tried to extract myself from the
accounts in order to give the reader a sense that prison practices are ongoing, that is they
continue independent of the presence of the researcher. The reader should however
remember that this is a particular account from a particular position.
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Shift change
The shift change begins with the departure of the night shift gate guard.
There are three shifts for staff 7.30-14.30; 14.30-22.30; 22.30-7.30. The
morning shift change is formally signalled by the ringing of a bell. From
that point a steady stream of men enter, around eighty in all. Some of them
do not arrive in uniform but chose to change in the reception office, storing
plastic bags of removed clothes beneath a bench. The names of arriving staff
are recorded by the senior inspector in the gate general remarks book, where
there is also space for remarks about other things like for example how
much rice the contractor has delivered. On the reception desk, there is also a
gang book which records the number of prisoners out doing labour, a rarely
used visitors book, and a book for recording new admissions. A chalk board
in the gate entrance reveals that there were 899 prisoners overnight, eight
new admissions the previous day, and nineteen acquitted by court or
released on bail. In at least three places in the gate area, the capacity of the
prison (547) is inscribed - on the rim of the door, the frame of the notice
board and a window frame - perhaps just to mock the actual population
figures. The names of officers functioning as escorts for prisoners, who are
on labour duty, are written on the chalk board, a written record of
responsibility. In the gateporch hangs a poster produced by a prisoners’
rights NGO stating: "Prison officers are also human beings; respect their
rights too".
The atmosphere in the gatelodge is good humoured, becoming less hectic as
time passes whilst the inspector continues methodically and without fuss to
record the names of staff entering the gate. Senior staff entering are greeted
with a hearty good morning and some are informed of the number of
prisoners present (cf. Torhile’s account, in chapter five, of the call to
attention having wide communicative value).
A gentleman in a suit arrives and leaves his briefcase – he looks like a
lawyer but he is actually visiting on a matter of private business with a
member of staff. Outside, the black maria, a vehicle resembling a cattle
truck revs its engine. A female staff member sits inside the inner gate in
civvies waiting to greet a friend. Two prisoners wait too, seated close to her
in their ink blue uniforms.
Just over one hour after my arrival, at around 8.15, groups of prisoners
begin to be escorted out on work duty. Tasks to be carried out include
loading firewood on a truck and bringing it into the prison. On similar
wagons groups of prisoners bring in loads of vegetables and wooden bed
frames for carpentry workshops. Other prisoners are out washing and
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cleaning cars at the outer corner of the prison wall, supervised by a nonuniformed
officer, seated casually on the ramp designed for examining the
undercarriage of vehicles. Whilst a couple of prisoners wash a white
Mercedes the others are engaged in washing clothes and accessories from
the prison. Prisoners doing outside labour are generally convicted, shortterm
prisoners. 54
If shift change was the first theme of my observations, and the recording
and escorting of work gangs the second, then the third noteworthy activity
in the gate-lodge that morning was the recording of prisoners to be escorted
to court and their preparation for that. This practice allows me to introduce
the themes of discipline and ordering.
Prisoners to court
I watch as an officer approaches the counter with warrants in hand ready to
take four prisoners to court. The names of the prisoners are recorded in the
“ATM to court” book and signed for by the staff member. Another officer is
to take three different prisoners. The warrant reveals that the prisoner was
remanded in custody on 1 st June 1999 for culpable homicide. Scribbled on
the back of the form are entries that record the adjournment of his case up to
ten times, over the three-year period during which the interminably slow
wheels of (in)justice have been turning. The warrants of commitment to
prison until trial (judicial form 25), are tatty and dog-eared, not surprising
given the way they are stored in the records office. The escorting staff, who
are members of the inspectorate cadre (that is junior officers) wield
intimidating, heavy, metal cuffs. It is not difficult to understand why they
call them irons.
The first four prisoners for court are called forward - one is asked his
offence and answers "robbery suspect" from Nasarawa state, trader. The
prisoners are leg-ironed together two by two. The warder smiles as they
leave. They will be walking to the local court, about 400 metres away,
ankles linked to one another. More prisoners leave for court, this time in
more discrete handcuffs. There are no criteria for deciding when to use
54 During and prior to the former CGP’s regime, prisoners could actually be hired out to
work for members of the public and money was thus raised for the NPS coffers. A percentage
of the income was also paid into an account for the involved prisoners. This seems legitimate
enough, the payment to prisoners circumventing possible accusations of exploitation. Prior to
the cessation of his period as CGP the practice was repealed. This was described to me as
removing the ladder he had himself been climbing, a metaphor rather suggestive of the
politics of NPS.
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which (leg irons or handcuffs). There is no difference. Both function to
resist the freedom and mobility of the prisoner. Prisoners do not get to state
a preference. Officers do not see any difference in the two forms of restraint.
It is their functional or instrumental meaning that is of significance. Some
moments later another group of likewise shackled prisoners shuffle out
stepping clumsily through the metal gate. Prisoners attend court in their own
clothes. Many of them are quite young. One has nasty sores/scars on his
legs. Meanwhile, a larger group of prisoners are escorted out to work
accompanied by the yard master, my neighbour in the barracks, a garrulous
slightly built man who seems to make up for his stature through aggressive
wielding of his bat.
During the registering of the prisoners going to court they wait in the
gateporch. Fourteen prisoners, who have leg ironed themselves are then
escorted out, manhandled by the warder within the crowded porch entrance,
physically pushed and shoved. The prisoners are for the most part sullen.
Prisoner-staff relations appear distant, prisoners’ lower status being
underlined by a variety of practices - the regimented way they are called
forward, the tone in which they are addressed, the irons, the pushing and
shoving.
Of course the more broadly structural factors, such as waiting over three
years for a verdict, also function to position these particular men as other, as
persons in limbo. The gateopener is chatting idly with another officer out in
the porch. The sun is getting hotter, shining through the barred window that
opens into the prison. When the trolley loaded with wood returns, an
accompanying prisoner smiles at me curiously. Some shouting starts inside -
a prisoner has hidden himself in the kitchen. This apparent “incident”
provides a hint that there is more to daily prison practice than the routine
comings and goings described up to this point.
By 9.15 the black maria has finally left with fourteen prisoners on their way
to court. Twenty-two prisoners are out on labour and four are on the way.
Whilst there is a relatively high level of activity surrounding these exits it
should be remembered that the prison contains 899 prisoners. Only a very
small proportion of them are involved in these movements.
Following the departure of the prisoners for the local court, the atmosphere
in the gate area changes from routine and business-like to loud and raucous.
Staff talk and shout to and across each other. This change in atmosphere
corresponds with the fact that the prisoners have gone out and seems to
mark a shift from working to waiting. Prison practice can be characterised in
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these terms. During shifts there are active and passive periods, that is
periods where directed participation in a given task is required and other
periods where officers are largely left to their own devices with few external
constraints or demands on their time except that they be on duty. In this
instance, officers utilise prisoners to help them carry eleven huge bags of
rice out of the gate. These are for staff member’s private use, an initiative of
the officer in charge and their movement at this particular moment
reinforces the absence of a clear distinction between work time and private
time.
In the yard a baton-wielding warder herds a group of awaiting trial prisoners
(ATP’s) back into their cells. He gestures threateningly with his baton in the
direction of an inmate who jumps out of the way. The ATP’s are hemmed in
by a fence with barbed wire across the top, though this is not a locked area.
It is actually the ATP's "exercise yard".
Prisoner release
As officers discuss in the porchway some convicts sit just inside the gate.
One, in civilian clothes with a plaster on his head, has been waiting most of
the morning. He is to be released. The gate opener has the papers but is
required to confirm the man’s identity by asking him questions. His fine has
been paid so he is not obliged to serve the rest of his six-month sentence. He
has only been in for two days. The events surrounding his release are
significant for my analysis of ordering and othering strategies engaged in by
prison officers.
The release procedure takes a good ten minutes - questions repeated again
and again, taunting and hostile. The prisoner smiles docilely and anxiously,
eventually relieved. A kind of psychological torture takes place as the gate
is opened and shut in his face allowing people in and out as his own exit is
drawn out and delayed. Why the taunting humour? My argument is that this
is to maintain relative positions in hierarchy, to cement the subservience of
the prisoner, to denigrate the prisoner and reinforce the domination of the
warder.
Another example of othering presented itself as an officer escorted a
prisoner across the street with some boxes of soap. The prisoner carries the
two boxes on his head. He is closely watched and the guard gestures at him
as they cross the road in a manner which suggests power and subordination.
A kind of know-thy-place movement of the arm, a gesture of ownership and
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warning of proximity at the same time, reminding the prisoner of his
presence and his status. 55
Hefty discussions ensue amongst staff about the rice left in the porchway.
Two prisoners return from court, their leg irons are removed and they are
searched whilst officers stand watching.
Visits
Earlier a family came in to the prison - a woman and four children from
teenage and down. Tuesday is visiting day for armed robbery suspects,
Wednesday for murderers and minor offenders, Sunday for convicted
prisoners, Monday for awaiting trial inmates. Visitors are given a wooden
tag to return on departure. Two men come with food for a relation. They are
obliged to taste it following prison rules. Another man comes in and is
refused permission to take antiseptic soap in, unless prescribed by medical
staff. Visiting takes place either in the chief warder’s office which is
adjacent to the gatelodge or in the assistant controller's office. At 10.45 four
or five men are lined up to give the name of the prisoner they wish to visit
and the offence. One says "murderer". Some bring food. They are taken into
the chief warder’s office and seated with their backs to the wall on a pew. It
takes over twenty minutes for the prisoners to arrive to see their visitors and
when they arrive they sit each on their pew, hunched towards each other,
speaking in hushed tones, always under the general supervision of warders.
Visits last no longer than five minutes. It is basically just the bringing of
food. When food is brought it is searched. Pepper is removed from one food
packet. It can be used as a weapon to blind staff. Inmates and their visitors
are cramped with no chance of privacy. Some lawyers attend from Abuja,
surprised to find that security agents from Abuja are already with their
client. The pursuit of justice in Nigeria seems full of surprises.
Throughout the morning there is a constant, controlled movement in and out
of the prison. At 11.55 the fourteen prisoners taken to court earlier return.
They are held to one side of the porchway, no doubt to allow continued
thoroughfare, but it was, as I noted down, “a herding, a gathering, an
55 This practice of othering, of differentiating self from other, of restating the obvious
power imbalance is a practice Dave Scott (2003) and Diana Medlicott (2003) have both
addressed in the context of UK prisons, Medlicot in the context of the ubiquity of cruelty
endemic in such institutions drawing on Nietzsche, Scott in the context of fragile and
vulnerable prison officer identity shored up by such intimidating practices.
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ordering”. 56 Names are called and new adjournment dates written on the
back of the warrants.
Before I took my leave of the gate staff I was introduced to the officer in
charge of the records office and advised to report at 8.00 a.m. the following
morning.
It is difficult to write of relations of structure and subjectivity without
implying their separation. The point is though that in practice the one
always implies and invokes the other. They are super-imposed, interwoven
facets of practice whose relations are generated only in practice. Procedures,
routines and everyday, rule-governed practices are both structure and
process or perhaps more accurately they are examples of structure as
process. Procedures and routines frame practice but do not exist were it not
for ongoing engagement and commitment, that is to say participation in
them. They cannot be understood, indeed cannot exist were it not for the
involvement of participating subjects occupying particular positions in
relation to other subjects – in this case subjects whose scope of possibilities
are more or less curtailed by the actions of the others.
Pursuing practices of othering and discipline
The records office
On the day I spent time in the records office the prison population was 900.
Eleven had left the previous day. Twelve new have arrived. The records
office is the first port of call for the formal processing of incoming
prisoners. It is also in the records office that the paper work is processed for
prisoners being escorted to court. The records office is, as its name suggests,
a bureaucratic part of the prison. Prison practice involves a surprising
degree of bureaucracy. In fact the prison service is a highly bureaucratised
service.
The records office is busiest in the mornings and has a staff of seven during
this period, four inspectors and three assistant inspectors assisted by convict
assistants. During the afternoon shift when there is less work only two
assistant inspectors are on duty. Prisoners first enter the records office the
day after they arrive in the prison unless they arrive Friday afternoon, then
they wait until Monday morning. The office itself is spacious, having an
56 Actions speak louder than words: maybe staff's knowledge of my ignorance of Hausa
(their indigenous language) liberates them to behave as they normally would. To be sure I
missed a lot of content, and ways of talking but it’s possible that I gained in being more
freely available to observe process and practice in the flesh.
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appearance of emptiness, a space through which people pass rather than
occupy. A weighing machine and a height measuring machine stand as
symbols of the processing of bodies. An old school desk, lacking a lid, and
with the bottom falling out contains a higgledy-piggledy mass of inmates’
possessions. If these are the possessions of all 900 inmates then they
obviously arrive with very little. A large part of the room is given over to an
open space where the new intake of prisoners squat whilst paperwork is
sorted out and records found or made. On the measuring machine hang
labelled belts belonging to prisoners, the labels made from torn cardboard
boxes.
From a position squatting in a row outside, prisoners stream in and take
their places some on pews lined along the wall others squatting on the floor.
At least seventeen officers are present, ready to collect warrants and
prisoners for escort to court. (Escorting staff have a habit of strolling about
with leg irons/handcuffs swinging from their hands.) Names are called and
the named prisoners led away. There ensues considerable discussion about
the paperwork and about the lack of escorts available. The numbers of
escorts becomes problematic when individual prisoners are allocated to
attend specific courts alone. A group of seven or so unwashed prisoners file
out. They stare as I do, without meeting my eyes. An officer calls one
prisoner over to his desk and takes a playful swipe at his head, smiling as he
does so. Once the prisoners have left, two staff remain seated behind their
desks with piles of paper files before them. They talk and sort
simultaneously. Other officers come in and out with questions as the convict
assistants wander about. Staff discussions take place in the public space
whether prisoners are present or not (cf. chapter five: private-public
division).
A prisoner enters and is questioned about the details on his warrant. He asks
to be spoken to in English but seems not to understand the question.
Another prisoner answers on his behalf. An uninvolved staff member
shouts, in hostile fashion, at the prisoner ordering him to give the
information requested. Another prisoner mutters that the prisoner has mental
problems, and this information is passed on to the officer shouting. Both
prisoners are then led out.
The convict assistants chat and joke, laugh and talk with a seated male staff
member. A couple of convict prisoners come into the office, one looking for
a pair of regulation trousers. The convict assistant takes care of it, offering a
pair whilst telling that the tailor can fix them up for him. Another couple of
convicts approach the officer on duty with requests and complaints. A group
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of ATP's come in with a complaint but are sent away again, told to take it up
with the headmaster. The activity in the office goes in unpredictable waves.
A convict sitting on the pew opposite the superintendent is asked about his
problem - he is concerned about whether his friends will be able to find out
about where he is in order to arrange for his release. The female officer
respectfully, even compassionately engages him in conversation about his
wife who is pregnant - he is concerned that she might drive. The prisoner’s
wife does not know that he has been moved from Abuja.
In the same row of offices as the records office, adjacent to the office of the
OiC is a room where admission boards take place. Whilst the records office
processes bodies and organises and stores the paperwork relevant to each
case, the admission boards are the formal, procedural practices that ritually
and symbolically mark the entry of each inmate into the prison. In the
following section I describe the practice of the admissions board, a practice
I was predisposed to give a special significance. The prison/total institutions
literature has often focussed on rituals of entry as specific examples of the
dehumanising and identity changing aspects of institutions For example,
Zamble and Porporino (1988) characterise Clemmer’s position on the
institutional pressures contributing to prisoners’ deprivation. They refer to
the
…depersonalising and stigmatising effects of legal processing and
induction into the prison, coupled with the alienative effects of the coercive
power exercised by prison officials in their attempt to maintain social
control within the prison. (Zamble and Porporino 1988: 7) 57
(See also Goffman 1961 on mortification. 58 ) I was curious to examine such
practices in the context of the Nigerian prisons. I was not disappointed.
I begin by describing the general form of the proceedings and then introduce
the theme of warder violence in its everyday typicality.
Admission board I – scene setting
The admissions board begins at 9.50. A female assistant controller of
prisons (ACP) presides over proceedings, occupying a central position in the
room reminiscent of a judge in a courtroom. Eight staff are present
including two female welfare officers dressed in plain clothes.
57 Zamble and Porporino actually question Clemmer’s approach preferring to focus not
on structures and practice but on inmate ways of coping with these, demonstrating again an
either/or approach to relations of structure and subjectivity).
58 I have discussed this myself with regard to the induction of UK prisoners into
therapeutic community wings at Grendon prison (Jefferson 2003).
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The prisoner is called for, brought in and forced to stand with hands clasped
behind his back two metres from the chairwoman’s (the ACP) table, ankles
tight together with a staff member directly behind him, literally breathing
down the back of the prisoner’s neck. The chairwoman questions the man
about whether his family knows where he is, what court he comes from, his
address and the date of his return to court. A second staff member uses a
stick to correct the prisoner’s posture, also raising his chin, later laughing as
a group of three prisoners are led in and the first one goes to squat down.
Occasionally welfare staff interject comments but the form is mainly one of
question and answer, of interrogation. One officer writes in the records
book. The ACP writes on warrants as prisoners are in turn dealt with and
despatched.
A prisoner answers haltingly and staff interject, speaking for him, over him,
depriving him of his own hesitant voice. The ACP doesn't speak the local
language of this man and uses welfare staff as translators. All prisoners are
called in barefoot, required to leave their shoes and hats at the door. On exit
they are gently but firmly pushed out of the room. There is explicit physical
contact as they are escorted in and escorted out. At 10.22 the admissions
board is ended. The staff member responsible for correcting prisoners’
posture, salutes abruptly and states "Good morning, Sir, 59 request to adjourn
til next sitting". The chairwoman declares admission board over and exits.
It is my contention that the above presentation is prototypical of admissions
boards. The following description starkly introduces the additional factor of
mundane violence. A typical officer reaction to questions about warder
brutality is to claim it is a thing of the past, and to distance themselves from
such actions by asserting that any violence there might once have been was
part of a colonial mentality and legacy. One officer described brutality as
being related to a master-slave mentality brought in by the colonialist
attitudes to the indigenous peoples. However correct such claims may be the
following case raises serious questions about these rationalisations.
Admissions Board II – mundane violence
The board resumes with a different female staff member presiding but
unfortunately in Hausa. The board is constantly interrupted by staff coming
59 The reader could be forgiven for asserting that I pay little attention to issues of gender
and masculinity, issues that some would give particular significance. This instance of
gendered language – referring to the chairwoman as Sir – indicates the general
masculinised discourse prevalent in the prison service. At an induction ceremony marking
the start of a six month basic course for senior officers despite the presence of women it
was officially declared that there are no women on the course “you are all men”.
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in and out - one prisoner’s interrogation features the delivery of an officer’s
lunch, though nobody pays any attention to the disturbance. Standard
proceedings resemble a kangaroo court 60 - character assassination, insult,
evaluation, classification, unpredictable, random. Despite the presence of
quite a few officers only the chairwoman seems formally necessary. There
is no obvious reason for the presence of the other staff members except the
escort and the welfare staff. Ascertaining the purpose of these staff
members’ presence is not made any easier by the fact that some of them do
not wear uniform. And yet these mainly passive observers occasionally
participate. They speak to correct, reminding the prisoner of their
subordination, conducting a play of power, asserting their own legitimate
authority, and questioning and delegitimating the identity of the prisoner.
This process of positioning is closely linked to the process or dialectic of
othering and of defining self in terms of other that I trace throughout this
chapter.
As I begin to tire of the constant Hausa intonations my eye is caught by a
rapid movement and the sharp noise of a slap about the ears landed
viciously on the unsuspecting prisoner by the warder standing behind him,
catching him totally unawares – two-handed from behind. The female
officer raises her voice, not to address the escorting guard but to further
question the prisoner, urging him to answer. He cowers reticently, obviously
fearing a second blow. The warder stands tensely behind him as the
questioning continues and the prisoner endeavours to explain himself. Then
another double slap from behind raps against the prisoner’s ears. An
expression of authority and control but also of humiliation, a gesture
communicating: "know thy place", once again locating the prisoner in a
subordinate position. The man is escorted out and I believe I hear a quiet
admonition directed at the escorting warder - in Hausa: "less violence while
the bature 61 is here." Repeated again by the warder who yesterday wielded a
stick, with a glance in my direction. There is no more slapping and the
escorting officer’s actions provoke no outcry. They can rather be taken as
prototypical of practice in such cases, paralleled by the ubiquitous "I'll flog
you" admonition to children. Violence is endemic and systemic. It is taken
for granted and entrenched as I will explore further below.
60 Webster’s new collegiate dictionary (1979) defines a kangaroo court as 1: a mock
court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted 2: a court
characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized or irregular status or procedures 3:
judgement or punishment given outside legal procedures.
61 “Bature” means foreigner or whiteman in Hausa. It was a term commonly applied with
reference to me.
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The material I present above could be considered sensitive. Yet, it is I think
my own sensitivities that are the issue rather than the sensitivities of NPS.
This is a significant point. 62 The significance of the sensitivity or not of the
material draws on the fact that whilst it appeared sensitive (I mean offensive
and problematic) to me, for prison staff, it is just a matter of normal, routine,
prison practice. Such routine, everyday, habitual practice cannot be hidden
because it is so taken for granted. It is invisible to those who engage in it.
This is part of the strength of the ethnographic project, that fresh, other eyes
see and frame the same world differently.
I talked about this incident much later with Torhile, discussing my analysis
of the routine nature of the officer’s behaviour. He elucidated the practice
further:
Well, they see it as being usual, they see it as being usual, when they ask
the prisoner a question he is supposed to maybe answer immediately and
answer audibly otherwise he should be encouraged to do that Maybe the
slapping will ginger him up or prompt him to…
Ginger him up?
(laughs) prompt him or move him to kind of motivate him to talk, slap him
to motivate him to talk. But I think it’s not, I think it’s not right. I think it’s
not right to slap the prisoners so. The prisoner should be encouraged,
rather. The prisoner should be encouraged to talk, slapping is not the
correct way of encouraging a prisoner to talk.
I pursued the issue of the routine nature of the slapping and Torhile
elaborated on the attitude of the escorting officer emphasising particularly
his subordinate position in relation to others and how he was merely doing
what was expected, what he is supposed to do:
He will have done it not caring, he is a subordinate staff who wouldn’t
bother who arrives there because this is what is supposed to be done, this is
how it has been done, so I have done my job, not caring about the
consequences… 63
62 One might imagine that behaviour would in some way be censored given my presence.
This was not my impression at all. Indeed, for the most part I was surprised about how little
self-censorship there appeared to be. Either staff accepted that I was there legitimately and
therefore felt they should hide nothing or they were unaware that there are aspects of prison
practice of which a broader human rights community and I might disapprove. Or, there is of
course a third option - that they did not care.
63 This attribution can be compared to Torhile’s self-attribution described in chapter five
about his participation in executions.
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The reference to the officer not caring who arrives refers to my presence.
Whilst I had been surprised to witness the slapping Torhile’s reasoning is
that because this is a man just doing what he is supposed to do, a member of
subordinate staff in the presence of superiors, he would not vary from
standard practice even given my presence, without an order to the contrary.
Mundane violence is only mundane in relation to another imagined more
extreme, more rare form of violence. The accounts above put prison staff
denials of violence in perspective. To a large extent though, I believe staff
are right. Gross human rights violations in the prisons in the form of
brutality and killings are not prevalent and perhaps never have been. It is
sins of omission rather than commission that make up the poor human rights
record of NPS despite polemical reports by the Civil Liberties Organisation
(CLO) in the early 1990’s. Since then though, there has been progress
demonstrated by the fact that human rights have become part of the rhetoric
of prison staff. And yet violence and degrading treatment continue in the
form I have described above, as everyday, trivial and mundane. The
significance lies in the everyday nature of the violence, in its mundaneness.
Admissions boards can be seen as quasi-courts – spaces for the reproduction
of subjectivities and the sustenance of particular forms of personhood. The
subordination of prisoners demonstrated by the ordering of escort
procedures and the processing of bodies in the records office is further
emphasised in these spaces by the clear putting of the prisoner in a specified
position in relation to staff and holding him there. Power is diffused through
location and position. Officers occupy multiple and changing places. The
prisoner is limited to one circumscribed space. Whilst staff can eat their
lunch prisoners must stand as if to attention. The adjustments of posture
represent the corporeal element of corrections at work and inscribe
corporeally the power relations inherent in the respective subject positions
of prisoners and staff.
The fact that admissions boards are the spaces in which the prisoner–prison
relationship, that is the relationship between person and institution, is
instantiated in performative ritual is highly significant. The claimed
intentions to rehabilitate are undermined by this institutionalised practice of
othering and distancing. A dichotomy between care (rehabilitation) and
control (as othering) where control trumps care seems evident. This is in
contrast to the training school where control and care seemed to exist side
by side (cf. chapter six). This is due to the different positions occupied by
participants in ongoing practice in relation to each other. Trainees are after
all only “prisoners” temporarily and their release date is set and they are to
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become junior officers. Prisoners on the other hand are Other (with a capital
O). The proceedings of admission boards – like adjudication in the training
schools - are inquisitorial, the prisoner assumed to be guilty, asked to give
an account of their offence and being challenged about it. Admission boards
are not courtrooms, the prisoner is not on trial, though any comments (tone,
demeanour or content) interpreted by the board as disrespectful are
punitively dealt with, demonstrating again the logic of penality of the
administration of discipline.
What are the consequences of the assumption of guilt so prevalent in the
Nigerian Prisons Service? One consequence is that it dampens any sense of
potential outrage at the conditions in which legally innocent people are
forced to live in. It can be seen as a distancing strategy on the part of staff, a
form of denial and self-protection. The distinction between officer and
prisoner must be maintained in order that identification with prisoners be
minimised, and boundaries, between identities-in-practice of the respective
groups, maintained. My experience at the gate discussing how staff would
feel should they be forced to wear leg irons or cuffs also illustrates a
difficulty in empathic connection between staff and prisoners and suggests a
distinct distance.
Lars Buur has examined the quasi courts of the Amadlozi in a South African
township on the edge of Port Elizabeth, paying particular attention to the
implications for personhood of what goes on and to the spatial dynamics of
the proceedings. Buur (2003a; forthcoming) points to the importance of
space and spatial politics when examining institutional practices. 64 The
space and the spatial politics of admissions boards has consequences for the
configuration of the subjectivities of prisoners and prison staff. Three
aspects of the Amadlozi quasi courts are partially shared with the
arrangements of admissions boards. Firstly in Amadlozi quasi courts judges
occupy prominent positions of authority (Buur 2003a: 8). Similarly in
admissions boards the chairperson is central though his or her authority is
dispersed or at least expressed once removed in the person of the escort who
physically controls and corrects movement, position and posture of the
prisoner. Here is an example of control by a surrogate suggesting a
depersonalised authority. It is not the chair’s nor the escort’s authority but
the authority of NPS (or the state). (Not a will to power (cf. Medlicott 2003)
rather an expression of power).
64 Buur bases his discussion of personhood and citizenship in the context of the Amadlozi
quasi courts on the following proposition: “Personhood and citizenship can be analysed as
the performance of status roles and spatial practices in the context of differently structured
organisations of space” (Burr 2003a: 4).
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Secondly, in Amadlozi courts “the only clearly demarcated place is the one
for the chairperson” (Buur forthcoming: 11). In the admissions boards there
is also a place premarcated for the prisoner and his escort that becomes
demarcated as a space for specific appropriate speech, behaviour, posture,
demeanour etc. only as the process unfolds. Buur describes one place in the
quasi courts as a “space of transformation” illustrating how persons (the
accused) passing through this space “usually find their status as a person
family or community member severely altered.” (forthcoming: 13).
Admissions boards are different; the prisoner’s space is not a space of
transformation but a space of imprintment, a space for the embossing of a
particular form of subjectivity, a demeaning space, a technology of
subjectification where relations of dominant and dominated are not
disguised but brought quite explicitly into the open. Admissions boards are
simultaneously inclusionary and exclusionary – they mark the entry of the
person to the prison community (inclusion) and they mark the
differentiation of the prisoner from the prison officers and society generally.
And the use of violence is an integral aspect of these twin demarcations, that
function to establish and demonstrate the social order of the prison. These
are not “social relations expressed in practices of identification” (Buur
citing Van Beek, 2001: 527) but social relations expressed in practices of
counter-identification, even anti-identification. It is the refusal of prison
staff to identify with their charges that fundamentally epitomises the logic of
penality common to prison and training school. Prisoners do not become
““bare- beings” – that is beings whom one can treat with impunity and
without regard for their psychological and physical well being” (Agamben
1998)” (Buur forthcoming: 15) by virtue of passing through admission.
They enter admissions as bare beings. They are already defined as other
before they enter. The removal of hats and shoes, the obligatory escort, the
correction of posture and language etc. all function not to create this
otherness anew but to declare it, to make it clear to the prisoner.
Prison admissions boards then are not instances of conviviality, an
expression Buur borrows from Mbembe (2001) to refer to relations typified
by “domesticity and familiarity” where the dominant and the dominated are
“inscribed within the same episteme” (Buur forthcoming: note vi: 37.),
despite certain aspects of prison life having a flavour of domesticity and
familiarity. In actual fact particular prison practices are better seen as
negations of conviviality, as re-establishing clearly differentiated positions
of dominant and dominated. These practices, precisely by virtue of their
existence, deny any logic of conviviality, deny the power of a shared
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episteme. 65 The third apparently shared element is that “a sense of flux and
disorganisation permeates the sessions” (Buur forthcoming: 12). This is
only true on the part of prison officer activity. No space for flux or
flexibility is allowed the prisoner; only a narrow circumscribed set of
unknown codes to which he must conform. The sense of disorganisation
undoubtedly contributes to a sense of disorientation for the prisoner.
A focus on space adds an important dimension to ways of thinking about
social practices of ordering and othering. Indeed space is implied in
ordering if one thinks ordering in terms of selection and the movement of
persons across spaces. The reception boards are a specific institutionalised
space marking the crossing of the prisoner from one space to another and
symbolically marking the prisoner’s arrival under the jurisdiction and
administration of the prison officer. The space of the reception boards does
something to prisoners but also to prison officers. It defines and instantiates
their relation. As prisoners are pushed into becoming different subjects,
pushed towards accepting the designation “bare beings”, prison officers too
are subjectified in particular ways. The delegitimating effects of the
practices are relational. As one party is delegitimated the function of the
other is given a foundation. The forms of participation in practice demanded
by the practice and the involved persons function to define the subjectivities
of participants. The fact that prison officers go in and out appearing not to
take proceedings very seriously emphasises the lack of freedom and the
limits to subjectivity on the prisoner. Officers do it because they can do it.
Mutual subjectivities are constituted dialogically in practice.
Ordering, othering and discipline grounded in an
ideology of corrections
The significant impact of institutional officials is therefore, not in terms of
their relations with the inmate alone, but in terms of a total effect on the
social world in which he is inextricably enmeshed. (McKorkle 1956: 419)
I suggested that the mundane violence described above is so much a part of
prison practice that it is invisible. This is not the whole story. From the
perspective of corrections it is actually quite conscious and quite explicit as
I will show below. The mundane violence described above is supported by
an ideology of corrections. It was the opinion of a number of prison staff I
65 It is worth bearing in mind the way prison staff are often denigrated by the wider society
apparently due to their associations with prisoners.
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spoke with that corporeal violence was a necessary part of corrections. Thus
correction or reform of the offender was not possible without violence. 66
Lars Buur also met this understanding during his study of the Amadlozi.
Buur (2003a; 2004) grounds the ongoing “routine violence” and corporal
punishment administered by Amadlozi quasi-courts and approved of by
local community members by referring to the way violence is understood as
integral to the constituting of persons and the moral community. As he puts
it:
Corporal punishment in the form of physical discipline rests on frameworks
of partly shared understanding as to the ideas, rules and practices of what
constitutes a moral being. Within this framework there is nothing odious or
revolting in severely disciplining younger members of the “community” or
females”. (Buur 2003a: 18-19)
He reports a conversation he had with a young woman during his attendance
at an Amadlozi session where a girl was severely punished. The young
woman explains the logic of corporeal punishment. Like the prison officers
I interviewed she states unambiguously “She needs to learn what is right
and wrong. You cannot know right and wrong without punishment” (Burr
2004: 18). Buur’s conclusion is that
…when force or corporeal discipline are utilised it does not happen only
when people are in extreme circumstances, acting out of passion, despair,
exhaustion of other options or irrational mob behaviour. (forthcoming: 18)
Rather it is about “teach(ing) them “the right way” through discipline”
(forthcoming: 18). 67 As Buur goes on to explain – and I have already
66 We find echoes of this thinking within certain other discourses, for example child
upbringing in the UK and especially in certain fundamentalist religious groups where
violence in the form of corporal punishment is the royal road to correction. Children must
have innocence beaten into them. An American missionary couple, in Nigeria explained to
me that due to “original sin” children are born sinful. Therefore they commit acts of
disobedience. In Nigeria the word stubborn is a far reaching descriptor of children’s fallen
status and is also applied to prisoners who do not conform. Disobedience and stubbornesss
are to be met with corporal, that is bodily discipline.
67 A parallel can be made with the military. Under certain circumstances the military see
themselves as the only remaining civilising force (for example as states collapse, or
revolution threatens). One could even argue that military interventions to enforce peace are
examples of military might attempting to civilise. In Nigeria the examples are numerous of
the military stepping in apparently to rescue the country. That their intervention often looks
like a naked grab for power by military elites disguises the fact that a more complex set of
relations are at work, incorporating the complex relation between the military, the state and
civil society. The main point here is that military and paramilitary institutions and their
members, unlike the stereotypes attributed to them by liberals, can well have a self-
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touched on in chapter six - punishment is forward looking rather than
backward looking. It is not proportionality in relation to the crime that is
important. The offence is not the referent, but the future behaviour of the
trainee/prisoner. Corporeal punishment is pre-emptive. The offence is
merely an excuse.
This analysis also helps explain accounts of prison staff where it is claimed
that the imposition of human rights violates their ability to correct prisoners.
In their eyes human rights are counterproductive to correction and
rehabilitation. For example, Henry a member of the armed squad told me
…the job is spoilt because of so many things they put in like human
rights…
And Okonkwo from the same prison:
Because the people you are dealing with they are hardened people and
when you want to reach to these people there is a way to reach to them…
They say that punishment is the heart of discipline… incarceration alone
cannot solve the problem of recidivism… (if) a prisoner that violates the
law within the prison circle cannot be punished by giving strokes of the
cane or some punishment then definitely the work of reformation and
rehabilitation cannot be done because the situation whereby the prisoner
stands and spits on the prison officer, (if) the prison officer does not have
the power to slap him, (if) they do not have the power to cane him for that
wrong he has done, then how can the same prison officer change that
particular person?
This view was reinforced during a conversation with two officers in a bush
bar late one afternoon. It was forcefully reiterated that disciplinary
techniques were necessary to keep prisoners in check. Prisoners are made,
for example, to squat because of the threat they pose to security. It is not to
humiliate them but to keep them in place. Such practices, it is claimed, are
not disrespectful or dehumanising but necessary. 68 Given the self-image of
staff as humanists and the view that correction is desirable and physical
force a necessary part of this, such practices become self-perpetuating.
Prison staff are not against prisoners, they are trying to reform them, at the
same time serving their country. The things they do are not to hurt or
humiliate. They are merely necessary, it is claimed, because of the
prisoners’ nature (note nature, not position, status or relation). This
conception that suggests humane motives. The military act corporally. Acts of aggression
are seen as necessary.
68 For further examples and analyses of understanding of violence as necessary and
legitimate see Buur 2003b.
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essentialised view of prisoners relates to the practices of ordering and
othering that underpin prison practice. 69
Another issue that Torhile and I discussed was that of corrections applied to
awaiting trial prisoners. In a legal sense those awaiting trial are presumed
innocent, in which case there is nothing to correct. Even acknowledging this
judicial fact Torhile suggests that perhaps these persons can benefit from the
prison regime anyway:
There will be nothing to correct in such a person, but then the person in
prison maybe might learn something new about life and anything. It’s not
actually correcting the person from any crime or any wrongdoing, I think
maybe because the person has been in a new environment under strict
conditions then the person might have learned something.
This is one of the rare occasions that a prison officer I talked with
specifically refers to learning and it is learning in a broad sense, learning
something new about life. It is not learning intended from the outside, or
necessarily by the prisoners themselves, but rather incidental learning. It is
the newness of the environment and the strict conditions under which the
person is constrained to live that creates an environment conducive to
learning.
Corporeal punishment is seen by Amadlozi and by prison staff “as a
necessary and justified form of discipline, as a legitimate way to restate and
internalise the core moral values of the community” (Buur forthcoming: 2).
This was illustrated rather graphically by one experienced prison officer’s
account of the violence done to one prisoner by other prisoners. His leg was
broken when he was caught engaged in a homosexual act. Another trainee
described how “they sex each other sometimes through the anus” and are
then “sent to the back cells… baton number seven to break kneecaps”
(Obierika). Whilst generally speaking officers expressed disapproval or
denial of violence in the prisons these acts were rather enthusiastically
condoned, clearly in the name of upholding and moulding the moral
community.
This ideology of corrections underlying punitive prison practices and
involving mundane violence presents interventions strategies with a
challenge. Merely suggesting that violence does not bring about respect is
unlikely to unseat such deeply held and institutionalised convictions.
69 Dave G. Scott (2003) has uncovered similar themes based on interviews with prison staff
in a UK prison.
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Mundane violence is not only a feature of Nigerian prisons. In a starkly
similar account Diana Medlicott has analysed the ubiquity of casual cruelty
operating in UK prisons. 70 She begins by citing Simon (2001, cited by
Medlicott 2003: 1) who has recorded the return to respectability of cruelty
as a penal value (writing about the USA). Medlicott gives numerous
examples based on observations and interviews with prisoners describing
how “little acts of petty treachery and cruelty exist side by side with acts of
kindness. The cruel, the kind and the ambivalent co-exist, often in the very
same individual” (2003: 4). 71 What disturbs Medlicott most is the normalcy
of the petty acts of cruelty. They are not the exception but the rule. They go
with the territory. Medlicott seeks explanations for the ubiquity of cruelty in
the status of the prison as a bureaucratic institution of “order without
attachment” yet she recognises that it ultimately fails at achieving the
bureaucratic aim of “studied neutrality and passionless objectivity” (2003:
7). Rather she points to the “sentiment of resentment” (2003: 8) feeding
hostility towards individual prisoners and invokes a straightforward
Neitzschean will to power informing the cruelty she has observed. It is
about asserting power and reinforcing relative positions – the prison officer
“is given a chance to bask in the glorious feeling of treating another human
being as lower than himself”, to quote Nietzsche (cited by Medlicott 2003:
10).
In the Nigerian prison training schools, as I have described in the previous
chapter, the reverse is the case for trainees. The institutionalised practices
stemming from the paramilitary structure and ethos place the trainee in the
subordinate position. But with graduation and transfer to the prison yard the
newly trained officer instantly has the opportunity to “bask in the glory” of
occupying a senior position to those clearly deserving of their lower position
and status. Medlicott is perhaps unaware that her description of cruel
practices as tied to sentiments of resentment and relative positions is an
example of a situation where relations of subjectivity and structure are being
created in ongoing practice. Whilst she locates the will to power and the
root of cruel behaviour firmly in subjects she is not unaware of the strength
of institutionalised ideologies. What is also important to remember is that a
correctional ideology tied up both with morality and corporal punishment is
part of the historical legacy of imprisonment. Legitimate violence comes
70
See also Sim (2003) on the casual maltreatment of UK prisoners by prison healthcare
professionals.
71
Likewise, in the Nigerian prisons mundane violence is not hegemonic; it is but a part of
everyday relations between staff and prisoners. On other occasions laughter and joking
ensue.
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with the territory. One could argue that society has changed and prisons
have not kept in synch. Laws have changed and conventions been signed
signalling changing sensitivities and intentions. But institutions remain and
continue to frame institutional practices, perhaps not surprisingly, out of
kilter with the statements of international conventions. The frameworks
remain for the will to power to flourish. Expressing a similar sentiment
Christie (in Freeman 1978: 187) suspects that “in the last resort, buildings
and personnel will prove more resistant to change than the public and the
politicians”.
Similarly, Medlicott (2003: 12) points out that the “economy of cruelty is
independent of policy changes, regime advancement or progressive
programmes”. Partly this relates to what she calls “the institutionalised
ideas” and the “dominant ideological context of the prison” that
“discourages empathising with others” (2003: 7). This is an understatement.
In actual fact the prison as institution not only discourages empathy; it
encourages distancing and supports the buttressing of fragile subjectivities
through vivid acts of contrast. The subjectivity of prison officers is
constituted in opposition to the subjectivity of prisoners as they are defined
a priori as deserving of cruelty.
How can we confront mundane violence? Or as she puts it “how can we
confront cruelty discourse in contemporary penality?” (2003: 12). This is a
question that I pursue in chapter nine as I problematise attempts to challenge
the ongoing cruelties of contemporary Nigerian prison practice. 72
What are the consequences for trying to bring about transformation? An
important point is, that mundane violence is rather different from the kind of
violations that human rights training would appear to target. Transformation
remains necessary in the face of the mundane, low key, institutionalised
violence of everyday prison practice, but human rights training (the
intervention of choice of foreign observers) is an intervention form illequipped
to deal with such violence. I will return to this issue in more depth
in chapters nine and ten.
My descriptions and analysis of prison procedures, routines and practice
present current practice. 73 Despite the limits of my observations in terms of
time spent systematically observing, it is my contention that my
72 The questions I am pursuing here are, as Medlicott makes clear, as relevant in the
industrialised countries as they are in Nigeria.
73 One reason for describing the practices typical of everyday working life in prison is to
demythologise prison practice and prison staff.
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observations record and document typical behaviours, that is standard ways
of reproducing and deviating from the canonical discourses supposedly
guiding prison practice. This is by no means a denial of variation. The same
procedures and activities – e.g. the escort of prisoners to court – are carried
out differently all the time, due to a multitude of factors: changing
constellations of staff, different prisoners, whether staff are being observed
by a superior etc. Yet, my contention is that patterns of relating to one
another and to prisoners for example are fairly consistent, framed as they are
by an institutional framework and set of goals. I am persuaded that patterns
of everyday practice are entrenched, taken-for-granted, self-evident and
intransigent. This is a claim for consistency regarding patterns of activity
over time but it is not to say that behaviour is consistent with the rules
governing practice. Rules (e.g. standing orders) are circumvented as often as
they are followed. It could be argued that this is the same for most
institutional practices – indeed that if institutional rules were followed
institutions would collapse.
Summary
In this chapter the ways in which institutional practices are inscribed in
persons in practice have been examined. I have shown how prison officers
operate in everyday working situations that are governed by a logic of
penality with ties to an ideology of corrections that combine with a dynamic
of othering to contribute to upholding practices of mundane violence. The
logic of penality is not only an aspect of the institutional context. Rather, as
shown in chapter six it becomes an aspect of prison officer subjectivity
through prison officer training. It is these factors that confront external
interventions aimed at transforming Nigerian prison practices and systems.
In the subsequent chapter, having analysed the practices of the training
schools and the prisons I examine the ways in which prison staff trainees
make and experience the shift from being trainees to being fully trained
officers back at work. This will include addressing the way they deal with
apparent contradictions, examining the particular way in which training
school practice and actual practice in prisons relate to one another.
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Tracing the movement from
training school to prison
This contradiction, then, between what the institution does and what its
officials must say that it does, forms the central context of the staff’s daily
activity. (Goffman 1961: 329)
There are a lot of contradictions. They are not contradictions anyway, they
are just indiscipline, there is indiscipline. What you are taught to do, what
you are expected to do, you deviate… In the school you hammer so much
on discipline and respect and diligence to duty but… the practice is so
different from the school, practice is so different. (Torhile)
In the previous two chapters I have given accounts and analysis of the
institutional practices of the prison training school and the prison itself and
the ways in which persons in practice participate and partially constitute
these practices. Now I want to retain attention on persons-in-practice, this
time with a focus on persons moving from one context of practice to
another. (To move is also to be in-practice). In this chapter I seek to
illuminate what is entailed in the movement from the landscape of training
school practice to the landscape of prison yard practice.
The chapter introduces the distinctive subject perspectives of prison officers
beginning with Torhile and then turning to some newly trained officers
recently re-posted to the prison yard. Since the training school is designed to
train officers for prison practice, the institutional action context of the prison
yard is taken as providing a frame from which prison officers have
perspectives on the action context of the training school, its relation to
prison practice and on three sets of relations, namely relations between
school-based officers and prison-based officers; relations between junior
and senior officers; and relations between staff and prisoners. Whilst the
focus is on persons in practice, persons are not seen as discrete entities.
Their expressions and perspectives are seen as expressions of identification
with others, that is as articulations of shared positions and partially shared
stances rooted in common locations.
In the previous two chapters I argued for a structural homology between the
practices of the school and the prison, focussing on a fundamental shared
logic underlying practice. This chapter does not deny that logic but
illustrates that despite fundamental similarities there remains space for
inconsistencies and contradictions. Claiming the institutions are
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homologous is not to say they are identical or even consistent. This chapter
focuses on differences, not at the level of principles governing the logic of
practice but at the level of the ways in which practice is experienced and
lived by participants in it.
I begin by introducing the contradictions (or indiscipline) of prison practice
vis-à-vis training as seen by Torhile who was involuntarily transferred from
the training school to the prison after over twenty years teaching and coordinating
the activities of the school. Caught mid in an adjustment process
his reflections are particularly poignant capturing as they do the out of
synch-ness of the respective practices, articulating the clash between
school/curriculum ideology and prison practice.
Officers’ constructions of each other
Torhile’s account of the ways in which officers from the school and officers
from the prison operate with particular images of each other is clearly
flavoured by his own struggle to adjust to his new location and position. He
declares explicitly that
…there are differences between the staff in the school and those who work
in the prison.
He expands on the way in which the distinctive locations (school and
prison) make their mark on subjectivities. Staff from within these respective
locations operate with particular stereotypical images of each other that are
arguably rooted not in the essence of the other but in the respective locations
of self and other. Torhile describes the way prison officers working in the
school look upon prison officers assigned to the prison:
we see them as being indisciplined… Mostly we call them traffickers…
You go into the prison you find prisoners and staff discussing…, you find
prisoners and staff sharing cigarettes. When I teach in the school I say that
shouldn’t be done, you should keep the prisoners at arms length. That is
what the standard rules say, that prisoners should be kept at arms length,
staff shouldn’t be too close with prisoners…
Torhile makes clear that staff working in the school see prison-based
officers as indisciplined. He gives examples of indisciplined practice and
contrasts this with the way he teaches things ought to be done. He further
legitimates his stance by referring to the standard rules. Torhile
demonstrates in these descriptions a clear identification with training school
staff, using the collective pronoun “we”, despite the fact that he is now
assigned to the prison. He goes on to explain that in the same way that
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training school staff have a particular perception or reading of prison yard
staff, officers in the prison yard also have an image of training school staff:
Those in the prison yard see those who work in the school as being too
theoretical and they see those in the school, how do they say "you come
there you want to talk education, education, education…" They feel that we
in the school don’t have the experience of working in the prison hence we
keep talking about “this is what the book says, this is what is supposed to
be done”.
Here he does not use the pronoun “we” but talks of those in the prison yard,
implying “them” rather than “we”, in spite of the fact that he is now one of
“them”. This strong identification is perhaps not surprising given his twenty
years service in the school, training young recruits. He has been compelled
to make the shift in location and the tension is particularly acute, and his
own subject position is clearly revealed as significant in this portrayal of
relations. These issues have come to matter to Torhile in particular ways
because of his new location in different structures of practice.
Torhile's struggle to adjust
Part of his difficulties adjusting relates to what he perceives as indiscipline:
Well, I am trying to adjust really, really trying to adjust to working in the
prison yard because in the school by 7.30 everybody is supposed to be on
duty 7.30. If its 7 o’clock everybody is supposed to be there at 7 o’clock
but in the prison yard you find people who are supposed to be on duty at
7.30 coming to work at 8 o’clock, some after 8, some later than that… they
look at it as if it is usual. I look at such things as strange.
As an experienced officer trying to make sense of his new position, prison
practice seems somehow alien to him. He gives very concrete examples of
how prison practice fails to live up to expectations based on previous
experience. He elaborates further, for example, on the contrast between
prison and school in terms of punctuality, then in terms of maintaining
silence. I ask whether it mattered that people are late:
Yes it does matter. It does matter because somebody is supposed to take
over a beat, from another person. In the prison… they don’t bother, they
don’t mind. In the school when the commandant, the course officer, the
training officer or the instructor is talking all students keep quiet… nobody
challenges, but in the prison yard the reverse is the case. An officer in
charge can be talking, maybe addressing the people on parade and some of
the staff on parade might be whispering and talking…
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This story was familiar to me having puzzled over a morning parade in the
prison yard that bore no resemblance to the form parade takes in the training
school. Torhile confirms that those are some of the things that are different
from what happens in the training school and expresses that these tensions
between what he had been teaching and instilling in recruits for twenty
years and actual standard practice have made his adjustment difficult:
If the officers are addressing the staff, staff are supposed to be lined up
properly, at attention or at ease and give rapt attention to whatever
instructions are given… These are the things I talk about in the prisons
where I am finding it a little bit… I’m just trying to cope now anyway but
for me they still come to attention, stand on parade properly, as they are
supposed to, because if they don’t I stop the parade and I take over the
command of the parade…
The telling expression here is the phrase I’m just trying to cope now
anyway. It is not the expression of a confident, experienced officer and
really seems to capture the gulf between what is taught in training schools
and practiced in prisons. Education in and of itself does not seem to be as
effective or operationalisable as Torhile has believed. Torhile is caught
alone in coming to terms with the shift from school to prison. Similarly, the
move trainees make is from enduring together to coping alone. This surely
has consequences for the possibility of bringing about changes in the way
practice is conducted. I turn now to examine the views of four recently
trained officers whom I interviewed about, amongst other things, the
transition from school to prison.
The two men and two women whose accounts I draw on here had been
through training within a year of the interviews. The interviews took place
within the prison yard and were recorded. 74 The names of the interviewees
have been changed for the purposes of this presentation. Makuda and
Akueke work in the same prison as each other, as do Esther and Gideon.
Each of the four has a different job within the respective prisons. Makuda
who had been a prison officer nine years before being sent on basic training,
works directly with prisoners in the yard. Akueke, with seven years prisons
service experience prior to training works in the administration section.
Esther, who was also an officer for nine years before being sent on training,
works in the compound for female prisoners and Gideon works as assistant
to the officer in charge.
74 I am grateful to DSP Kenkwo who conducted interviews on my behalf including the
interview with Esther.
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Each officer has a different trajectory and their everyday practices have
different locations. Their experiences and stances overlap in some ways and
differ in others. Four questions guided (and were revised in the light of) my
re-listening to the taped interviews and analysis of the transcripts:
• How did prison officers experience starting work in the prison yard?
• How does training expand/limit the possibilities for prison staff to
perform their jobs?
• In what terms do prison officers express the significance of shifting
between action contexts, particularly with regard to their “reception”
by senior colleagues?
• How do newly trained staff talk about (their relations with)
prisoners?
These questions reflect to a degree the dominant themes emerging in
interviews conducted in different prisons, namely the relation between
training and actual prison work, staff ways of conceiving of prisoners, and
the relation between “successive generations”. 75 Akueke sums these up in
her description of what the training school achieved:
They taught us how to handle them, the duties of each rank and what you
are supposed to be doing and how you are supposed to respect the senior
ones and how you are supposed to treat inmates and many other things.
It is about handling prisoners, recognising the duties imposed by relations of
rank and seniority and relating appropriately to superiors and prisoners. The
transition trainees have undergone relates directly to the concept of
trajectories of participation already discussed in chapter five. The shift in
action context gives a new, though expected and planned for, direction to
trainees’ trajectories and brings them into new positions and new networks
of relations.
Starting work in the prison yard after training
Training has two implications for prison staff. An officer who has been
trained becomes accountable and responsible or at least is seen as such by
colleagues. A non-trained staff member can make mistakes in the workplace
and be excused but a trained member of staff is judged by different criteria.
75 In Situated Learning Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss this type of relation in terms of
newcomers and oldtimers. One could also think of newly trained staff as novices and older
staff as more experienced or refer to newly trained staff and those not so-newly trained or
never-trained. My choice of “successive generations” is inspired by Lave’s remarks at a
lecture at Copenhagen Business School on 29 th March 2004.
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The other difference training makes, is that it disciplines. Trainees learn to
relate to their superiors appropriately, to bear their uniforms correctly, to
salute, and to march. Learning discipline is about coming to recognise one’s
place within the social organisation of the institution, and more positively
that you have a place. It’s about the reproduction of a particular form of
social order, and about becoming a member of a social body, a constituent
part of an arrangement of institutions. My contention is that the primary
purpose of prison staff training in Nigeria is to inculcate discipline and
support pre-existing forms of social organisation. What is learned in the
schools is not primarily criminology, penology, or psychology (aspects of
the curriculum), but discipline. In what follows I will show that the learning
of discipline and the implication of becoming accountable and knowing
one’s place are interwoven aspects with personal and social dimensions.
For most prison officers returning to the prison yard following training is
not the first time they have been in the prison. Indeed only one of the four
officers whose words I draw on below is a recent recruit to the prisons
service, the other three having between seven and nine years service under
their belts. On recruitment the officers were sent on a brief induction course
held at local zonal headquarters for small groups of newly recruited staff.
Induction courses present in compact form some of the themes of the sixmonth
basic course.
The basic recruit course, despite its name then, does not have the function of
a pre-practice input, or a preparation. It is rather, for many at least, an
intervention or an interruption in an ongoing set of working practices that
officers are already engaged in. That is to say prison staff trajectories do not
necessarily consist of smooth, predictable, linear developments. One other
officer I interviewed (Obierika) had been sent on the basic recruit course
after serving twenty years as an officer. Such training undoubtedly entailed
a diversion in his ongoing trajectory. The fact that training often comes after
an initial period of working in the prisons means that trainees enter training
with a particular set of baggage and return to places of work where they
already have a history of participation and a set of relations. In this sense it
resembles external interventions.
Being trained or not trained does however make a difference to the type of
functions that the officer is allowed to fulfil and the level of accountability
they are held to, as will emerge below. Untrained officers are seldom given
individual responsibility for inmates:
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Though you’ll be taught during your induction course… they assume you
have not been trained so they cannot give you an inmate to handle…
(Akueke)
An obvious significant issue in this chapter is the way in which the
discipline instilled in the training schools and the theory taught in the
classes plays out in practice or, if we take Torhile seriously is not. Gideon,
the new recruit, expresses this challenge:
We are trained, we are disciplined, we are very disciplined…but the
problems we have are the practical aspects of the job.
Gideon, more than any of the others, expresses the tensions of before and
after:
Before I joined the service I thought … if I would come here they would
kill me… I never wanted to come here because I think it is a place where
bad people are gathering… so I was afraid to come here, I was scared I
didn’t want to come here at all… but since I came to the job I was
enlightened by our lecturer in the school and by some interviews and by
some attachment, where we come to the yard… I came to realise that this
job is very, very interesting.
The shift here from scared to interested, mediated via a mixture of lecturers’
input, interviews and a period of attachment is remarkable. It is a shift in
register from emotion to cognition (emphasised by the use of the word
enlightened). Gideon’s curiosity is awakened, and his fears dampened. The
prison becomes a place for detached interest rather than immediate fear. It is
difficult to ascertain whether this is a function of training per se or a
reflection of Gideon’s own personhood.
Fear is also expressed by Akueke. She speaks of the first time she ever
entered the prison yard:
I was excited somehow but I was scared because some of them look really
horrible… Some of them, like the robbery suspects, they look so wild, you
know some of them are not ready to repent or leave their wayward ways…
Some of them are really hardened. I was so scared then because I was just a
young girl then.
Akueke attributes her fear to a combination of the wild looks of the
prisoners and her own youthfulness. Her fear is exacerbated by her account
of prisoners as “wayward” and “hardened”, as “not ready to repent”. The
relation between prisoners and officers as it is mediated by officer
attributions regarding prisoners will be considered further later in this
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chapter. Akueke’s fear is tempered by excitement and she recognises the
potential the prison has to teach her lessons on life:
You come to know about a lot of things in life… It’s just like another
school because it’s a world of its own, a different world.
The schooling metaphor presents a vivid example of the way school and
education are implicated in everyday ways of thinking about learning and
knowing. Yet there is a hidden, perhaps unintended profundity about this
remark acknowledging that school like prison is indeed a world of its own, a
different world. It is the separateness from the rest of life that allows the
prison to be conceived of as a school. Implied here is a view of learning and
knowledge as separate from everyday life, that in order to learn one must
step out of day to day struggles and experience something beyond them or
different to them. I am arguing in this dissertation for the possibility of
conceiving learning and knowing as integral aspects of everyday life. They
are not limited to distinctive, distant sites.
Prison service work is diverse, as I have already indicated. In the context of
discussing the move from school to prison Makuda remarks that “it is the
yard that has the job”, expressing, one could argue, the core function of
prison work as having to do with prisoners. When one examines the
extensive bureaucracy that makes up NPS one can sometimes be in doubt.
What the basic recruit course does is qualify prison staff for doing the “real
work”, that is handling prisoners. Again in the words of Makuda:
and echoed by Gideon:
We were enlightened on how to work in the prison yard.
The purpose of the training is to make us strong, physically strong and well
trained, trained in handling these people.
It is not only fear of prisoners that is invoked by initial entries to the prison
yard. Gideon describes his fear of senior colleagues in the light of his
limited knowledge of what might or might not be problematic:
Actually, the very first day I came I was scared. You don’t know what to
do, that might be an offence to them. As you are taught in the school, you
try as much to respect any of your seniors. You see, you have to be afraid,
you don’t know if this thing might be a problem, or this might not be a
problem, so that very day, I was afraid. Anything I do I try to do the right
thing so that I shouldn’t be blamed… It would be a shame to me.
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Gideon is afraid of making mistakes, of not living up to the standard of
being a newly trained officer. He is self-consciously ordering his new
trajectory both in the light of training and in the light of what he imagines
senior officers might expect. His fear relates to the shame of being blamed
for committing an error in relation to his seniors. He does not express the
confidence of say Akueke who states subsequent to training:
Now I feel I have the confidence anywhere I can go and whatever that the
service requires me to do I can do, because I am trained, well trained. I felt
excited, they cannot exclude me in any thing they are doing. If you have
not been trained there are some things they will not call you up for. They
don’t want to take the risk of you not being trained and then if anything
happened, then my in charge would be called for and they will ask him
why did he involve me.
Makuda describes his feelings about going back to the prison yard:
I was eager to work in the yard so I would be fluent with the work.
The idea of becoming fluent with the work is an evocative one. As one does
not become fluent in Danish by reading a book about Danish neither does
one become fluent in the complexities of prison practice through attending
school. Fluency demands participation in practice.
I have examined the ways in which officers experience starting in the prison
yard after training, focussing particularly on the new sets of relations
officers enter into, namely with prisoners and senior officers. I turn now to
explore in more detail the way training paves the way for prison officers’
particular ways of participating in prison work in terms of opening up and
limiting possibilities. I explore five sub-themes: the extent to which training
prepares trainees for the job; the irrelevance of a match between theory and
practice; the claim that training counters fear; conditions of training and the
importance of endurance; and the importance of identification.
The expansion and limitation of possibilities
Preparation for the job
It is useful here to draw an a minimalist description of what training
involves, drawing once more on Torhile’s account:
You are disciplined. You are trained not to sleep on duty. You are trained
not to go drunk on duty. You are trained not to leave your beat before you
have been properly relieved. You are trained to just watch and make sure
that the prisoners in the yard are doing what they are supposed to do,
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purely guard duties, purely guard duties and not actually representative of
trying to change the prisoner…
Torhile delineates the job of the prison officer and defines training in terms
of a narrow agenda of maintaining the security of the prison. To be
disciplined is defined in terms of a list of negatives: to be disciplined on
duty is not to sleep, not to be drunk, not to abandon your post. The positive
aspects of discipline and the job are underplayed: you are trained to just
watch. The job is purely guard duties. This does not make prison work
sound particularly glamorous. But many do, as I have described in chapter
four, talk about the job in more positive, sometimes even altruistic and
utopian terms and an indication of this other discourse is given in Torhile’s
final comment where he contrasts guard duties with the task of trying to
change the prisoner. As I have already considered, there is an agenda of
rehabilitation, reform and reintegration in the lecture script that does not
evidence itself in practice. The above remarks emphasise the disjuncture and
further comments emphasised again how the course focuses mostly on
ensuring that the prisoners are kept in prisons.
If prison practice is chiefly about containment, about guarding, about
maintaining security then how do the training schools equip the trainees for
this task? How are they preparing them for this job? And with a twist, how
prepared are they for the job?
Many officers frame the task of the training school, in preparing them for
work in the yard, in terms of knowledge acquisition:
Let me tell you something, there are some people, they seem not to be
serious whatever they are doing but that place if you are serious… there is
much knowledge there. You will learn many things. You will be taught
many things. It’s most especially on the job and outside. You will have
knowledge of the job and knowledge of outside people, how to interact
with people here and how to interact with people outside. (Gideon)
Here the explicit linking of teaching, learning and knowledge is illustrative
of dominant conceptions of what training and education is all about. The
basic recruit course is seen as equipping prison staff with the skills required
to handle prisoners. Whether or not it actually does give them these skills or
whether skills are first and foremost developed through practice, this does
not alter the fact that officers credit the school with having given them these
skills. Such claims do not however diffuse the attendant anxieties expressed
by some (e.g. Gideon above) despite the contrasting self-confidence exuded
by Akueke.
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The insignificance of a match between teaching and practice
A number of staff, not only Torhile, articulated a mismatch between what is
taught in the school and what is practiced in the prison yards, even claiming
that what is taught is consciously and intentionally inaccurate. For example
Jonah, a member of the armed squad told me:
You know there are many things we are taught in school. They tell you that
when you come back to your station the staff will not be as you were taught
in school.
Mmm… they tell you that?
Yes, so what you really have to do is, you just have to do just like them.
Isn’t there a saying do in Rome as the Romans do so…?
Other staff loyally reflected the implicit assumption that there is a degree of
match between training and practice. The distinctions in these perspectives
represent contrasting ways of ordering personal trajectories. What do
officers say about the difference training makes to their working lives?
Views expressed vary depending on the positions of the speaker. Those with
previous experience in the yard tend towards limited accounts of the
difference training makes:
The difference is not much because the things they taught us there I knew
some of them before… (Makuda)
Makuda goes on to describe the significance of putting the things he had
previously known into practice:
And to sum up:
… only a few that I don’t know and they enlightened me…Like before I
know it but I’d never worked in the yard with the prisoners. I’d never
opened any cell before so when I came back from course now I know how
to go and open the cell, talk to the prisoners about how they will come out.
If there’s anyone that is sick I will take him to the clinic and refer to the
doctor and explain what the prisoner told me when he was in his cell.
When I was in training… I was not performing physically. I was just doing
the oral or the theory part of the job but when I came here I was practically
doing it… (Makuda)
Interestingly in the latter quote the job is divided up into an oral or theory
“part” which is “done” in the school and an unspecified “it” that is “done”
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practically. There is the job in its wholeness that is done practically and
there are supplementary parts, additions that are oral and theoretical. What
is the relation between the parts and the whole? Are the parts integral to, or
abstract from the whole?
Gideon with his limited experience of the yard prior to training claimed a
clear link between school and yard:
Actually, my first day here was quite interesting because after the course,
you see, what you are taught theoretically, when you come here you do it
practically… This is the yard where you see most of the things taught in the
school physically…
His lack of previous experience allows him to give extra significance to the
idea that theory comes before practice, a significance that officers with prior
experience play down. The mismatch, expressed so intensely by Torhile,
between what is taught and what goes on in practice is insignificant for
newly trained officers because the training brings with it a credential for
action, not by virtue of what is taught, learned, or actually goes on in the
school but merely by virtue of attendance. Having attended training grants
one legitimacy. It enables a shift in position and a shift in action
possibilities. One becomes allowed to open cells, talk to prisoners, escort
prisoners etc. More is expected of trained officers. Training is like a
sheriff’s badge. It confers authority and legitimacy, no matter the particular
background of the applicant. It is not the substance of training that is
important but the fact that one has participated in it. During training,
substance arguably has more significance than after, at least for trainees
caught up in assignments and engaging in morning physical exercise etc.
Training is not important on the basis of what it confers on trainees in terms
of knowledge or learning but on the basis of its disciplinary effects, on the
basis of the production of particular kinds of people, that is members of the
paramilitary body.
Untrained junior officers who are stationed in prison yards prior to training
are generally attached to offices and administrative tasks, as Makuda
explains regarding himself:
They attached me in the office because I was not trained… they thought
since I came from HQ to this place I was not taught how to work in the
yard so they attached me to the office instead.
Implicit in this remark is an assumption that one learns “how to work in the
yard” only via training, that learning is limited to formal frameworks for
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teaching. Makuda himself presents a contrasting view pointing to prisoners
as those who helped him know the job and the rules and regulations:
I like working with the prisoners, so it is from them that I will know the job
well and by doing that and interacting with them I’ll get to know the rules
and regulations of the prison authorities.
Makuda’s decision to know the job from prisoners should be understood in
the light of a disjuncture he recognised between what he had been taught in
the training school and what he met in practice:
The surprising thing was that while in training they taught us that the
prisoners are very aggressive, that if we… play with them they will harm
us…but actually when I came in to the prison yard when I start the work, to
my surprise, I found out that they are not harmful and aggressive. It only
depends on the way you communicate with them, the way you behave to
them… If you provoke them they will be aggressive to you but if you don’t
do anything that will provoke them there will be no problem… It has to do
with how you deal with people.
This latter comment seems to be a discovery Makuda has made for himself,
in spite of the school as it were. Yet this does not lead to disillusionment
with the training. He is still able to articulate a positive evaluation of the
course, or at least its purpose:
The purpose of training is, its good because the purpose of staff training is
to make the staff know its job very well… I learned much. I learned much
about the job and now I’m putting it into practice. Many of things that I
learned from there I’m practising them here.
These remarks strengthen the point I made above about the way in which
the mismatch between theory and practice does not have such significance
for new trainees as it has for Torhile. Staff utilise practice to recontextualise
the training. Yes, they express surprise when they are confronted with
aspects of practice they had been taught would be different but this does not
cause them to denigrate the training. For Makuda, the surprises of practice
and his claim to learn from prisoners does not detract from the value he
grants the training. He is able to hold these apparently contradictory stances.
This is not to suggest that Torhile devalues the training when confronted
with indisciplined practice. Rather his position as an experienced senior
officer allows him to critique prison practice in the light of training. New
trainees express surprise but seldom critique. They are too busy trying to
find their place.
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The countering of fear
Esther describes how the training helped her overcome her fear of doing
something wrong and becoming a victim of punishment:
I feel very happy after being to training. I have many experiences. Before,
some things that you want to do, you will be afraid whether you should do
these things. You don’t know whether you will fall into a victim of
punishment. But after training, then they explain many things to us, some
things that you have to do as your right.
Training makes me to … you know before when I was working in the yard
although I was learning from others, sometimes when they send you
somewhere to do some work you will be fearing, like taking the inmates to
hospital… Now I am trained if I am taking a prisoner outside I will not
fear. I know that I will be so close to that person. I will not allow that
person to step out more than me… You have to follow that person so fast.
You cannot give the person gap to slip because you maybe have two steps
between you and that person, you don’t know whether machine is waiting
to carry that person, or motor, you have to be closer.
In this very concrete example (that by the way presents the exception of an
untrained officer escorting a prisoner) one can hear echoes of the classroom
teacher coaching the trainees in how to track the inmate during the escort,
and perhaps warning of the consequences of losing the prisoner. Anxieties
about escorting prisoners to the hospital were also expressed by Akueke:
When we go to hospital with the inmates, when they are on admission, we
have to stay there with them. That’s what I don’t like because it’s a risk.
We go with them if a female inmate is sick, maybe I am on duty… you
know we do that job at our own risk. And you don’t know, if she escape its
my fault, in case if a relation might come maybe to attack you, take her you
know… That’s the part I don’t like most in this job.
Whilst Esther expresses her confidence that now she knows to stay close to
the prisoner, Akueke expresses her discomfort at the risk under which she is
put during the very same task. Training does not have uniform effects (i.e. it
does not counter fear across all situations) but combines with subjectivity in
actual practice to create differing scopes of possibility and feelings about
these.
Conditions and endurance
Whilst knowledge was available and valued, conditions were not approved
of, as Makuda explains:
It was easy but at the same time not easy. It was tough on the other side.
What I mean is that, like I said earlier, the aspect of feeding. I didn’t enjoy
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that side at all, but in terms of the training and the skills, the way they talk
to us the way they teach us, that’s fantastic. Of course we communicated
with our instructors freely, they give us opportunity to come and meet them
when we have problems and if we have a genuine problem that needs your
going back home – maybe you need to leave the school to come and find
something that will supplement your feeding - they will allow you to come
back home and get those things and come back and give you at least 2 or 3
days to come back home.
On the one hand the training is criticised for the poor quality of the food and
on the other hand praised for the openness of staff in granting him
permission to go off compound in order to procure money to purchase food
elsewhere. There is an irony in this compliment. Akueke also refers to the
poor conditions and alludes to the necessity of endurance and dependence
on God:
In fact, first I have to talk about the feeding; the accommodation, secondly.
It’s nothing to write home about. The exercises, the training we do just
takes everything and the feeding just look at the feeding. It’s not in order. It
will not help you. Rather, it will make you to maybe scare you out of the
job, and run away. It’s not easy. You’ll just maybe be getting pap with
three bean cakes, three pieces, three small, small pieces. It’s hard to
imagine somebody will be taking very heavy exercise in the morning and
go to classes in the afternoon and come back again evening. You know it’s
not easy.
And further, It was very, very hectic. I mean, everything there was in fact not easy, the
feeding, the training itself, the rigorous exercise, the feeding, the
accommodation in fact. We really thank God for bringing us through.
How can training be characterised? Trainees speak of it as something to be
endured. Endurance is a key theme in the lives of prison officers, both in
relation to the conditions under which they are trained and work and their
interaction with prisoners. Gideon was introduced to the need to endure on
his first day on duty in the yard:
There are surprises. The very day I came here I was given the key to come
and open the inmates. When I opened the cell some of them were walking
sluggishly you know, some of them were not happy being here. The way
they walk out, you as a staff, you have to endure, to endure to allow them
to come out. Some even try to push you, try to do something that will hurt
you. When you see those things you endure…
Esther expands further on endurance:
If you work in the prison yard you must be somebody that has to endure,
because as we were discussing if you are passing this field now, let’s say
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you pass in front of two cells, then maybe they start to call you, “Oyibo,
give us money now… you no buy something for me now?!” So in that way
they have started abusing you, telling you any sorts of nonsense… Even if
you were a staff that is how they would talk to you, telling you anything
they like… If you cannot endure you may lose your mind with them, but if
you can endure you won’t mind them, all they are saying will not even
enter your ear… When they are done they will see that it doesn’t bother,
that you don’t care. When they see it they will start laughing because they
have tried you and you have not showed in any action that you heard what
they are saying…
Endurance then, is something else, alongside discipline that the training
school experience confers on trainees. It is not so much about mortification
to use Goffman’s expression but about the production of particular forms of
subjectivity. Another facet of training related to discipline is the sense of
belonging it renders. Indeed, training creates a framework where
identification is demanded and expected. This is generally expressed
positively.
Identification: developing a sense of belonging
Esther expresses optimism exhibited in her reading of the prison service as
one big family, not divided by ethnic allegiances but joined together by the
uniform:
In this place… this uniform joins us together… This work is a federal
work. It’s not a state work. It’s not one man’s business work so it is a
federal work: some people from northern side, some people from Kano
state - they are here on transfer, some people from Sokoto - they are here
on transfer, some people from Imo state, Calabar any part of Nigeria they
are here. As far as this prison joins us, anywhere you are you feel
comfortable and you join them as a brother and as a mother and a father…
Significant here is the reference to fathers, mothers and brothers, suggesting
harmony and co-operation but also reflecting the hierarchical, authoritarian
patterns of prison service social arrangements that are also played out in
Nigerian family structures.
Esther claims that equal rights are promoted in the training school by the
fact that attending trainees drop their rank for the duration of the course and
become subordinate to the instructors whatever their former relative rank.
Paradoxically, the inversion of relations of superiority is viewed as
enhancing respect for superior officers:
(In training) once you reach the gate you drop this rank, put this rank inside
your bag. … Even if you wear your uniform you do not apply any rank…
That shows that everybody is equal once you enter the training whatever
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your rank… When you come back from that place you will know that a
senior is a senior that you will respect the senior so that others that are
following you will give you your due respect. So this you will learn.
(Esther)
According to Esther, training invokes both a sense of equality and a sense of
respect for seniors, what Gideon expresses in terms of identification:
What I enjoy most in this job is that it gives you a sense of belonging.
Having presented some accounts of what training offers practice I turn now
to examine the ways in which officers grant significance to the shift from
one action context to the other particularly with reference to possibilities for
and resistance to change.
The entry of “new generations”
The shift from training school to prison is a shift not only in position vis-àvis
colleagues and prisoners and the social arrangements thereof, but also in
action contexts. Different though similar (that is to say partially different,
partially the same) opportunities and possibilities for action present
themselves in the prison and in the training school and different though
similar constraints on action.
In this section I want to examine some aspects of the shift, particularly with
reference to the way the “new generation” of trained officers present a threat
to and invoke systemic rather than personal resistance, that has implications
for the possibility of putting into practice progressive teaching from the
school and for the possibilities of change more generally. The newly trained
officers I spoke with touched on this issue as did Torhile. As you will recall
Torhile was not newly trained but similarly to the newly trained officers he
made the move from the school to the prison.
Resistance to change
Torhile explained that it is actually taught at the school that the staff who
work in the prisons are indisciplined, implying that trainees should not
model themselves on what they meet in the yard. This is however exactly
what trainees do in practice when they return to their stations. They realise
that practice in the prisons does not match what they have been taught in the
schools and they seek to emulate senior colleagues alongside whom they
must work and co-exist. Some try to resist the dominant communities of
practice and seek to bring about change as indeed Torhile does as he
struggles to adjust to working in the prison. Yet the overwhelming
impression is one of new staff struggling to fit in and find their place in the
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already operating order of things. Innovation is not highly valued (cf.
discussion of “standing out” in chapter five). Many staff members describe
how prison and training school differ in terms of what is taught in the one
and practiced in the other. Torhile, who experienced this himself following
his move from the school to the prison, expressed this in the following
terms:
They run into bricks, they run into bricks or some resistance from the
senior officers.
It is more useful to speak not of senior officers’ resistance but rather of the
ways in which newly trained staff abandon the ideals taught during training
as a way of coping with and adapting to the constraints and limitations that
the arrangements of structure present. Most of the contradictions I observed
were material and systemic rather than interpersonal. At least any
interpersonal resistance echoed not personal agendas but institutional and
structural ones. Senior staff cannot be held responsible for such constraints.
To understand the sedimented nature of prison practice and the resistance of
practice to innovation we need to understand particular practices in their
relations of structure and not limit our search to the persons who seem to
occupy positions as hinderers of change. This does not mean that relations
between newly trained staff and senior staff do not exemplify the problem.
For example Akueke says,
… there are some things, some of the officers are just overlooking and we
the young ones really know it and we want to put some things in the
service but we are not opportuned because we cannot talk, we cannot speak
out. Something to do with the job, with the uniform.
Here Akueke defines the initial problem as some things that are being
overlooked by senior staff. The newly trained staff with their fresh eyes see
this and want to make a difference but are prevented, not though by the
senior staff but by their own lack of voice. And this lack of voice is not due
to the senior staff silencing them per se but as she puts it something to do
with the job, with the uniform. Here the allusion is to the relations of
hierarchy that determine who speaks to whom, when and about what. We
are not then talking of a collective resistance to change but of an in-built,
institutionalised inertia.
Torhile was confronted with this inertia. He describes three specific
practices that he attempted to change. The first was the practice of the
prisoner having to squat during reception boards. The second was the
abolition of the parade of honour for the Chief Judge during his visit for jail
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delivery and the third was the innovative strategy of informing prisoners if
there was to be an unforeseen change in their diet. Despite his seniority in
the prison he experiences resistance to these ideas and it seems likely that
they are only operative if he is himself present. The idea that the prisoner
should not squat was dismissed out of hand. An additional proposal Torhile
put forward, on first being stationed at the prison, related to one of the
unused buildings that he suggested could be used for an education facility or
a library to be utilised by local NGO’s offering classes. This idea has yet to
result in anything concrete.
What is it that junior staff meet when they encounter the prison yard?
Gideon put it this way:
Actually they will teach you the right thing in the school but when you
come here if you try to implement it here, it will somehow be a problem,
you understand. It is partly a problem for the people here.
Here it is suggested that whilst the right thing is taught in the school, the
right thing itself is problematic in practice, creating a problem for people
working in the yard. (It is possible that this reference to the “right thing” is
more a linguistic gesture of faith than a substantial attribution). As I already
mentioned in some instances whilst the right thing is being taught it is
simultaneously declared that the right thing will not be practiced.
In chapter nine I refer to the paradox that human rights training to some
extent encourages individual prison officers to resist the system within
which they are caught up, even to act in opposition to its constraints and
practices. Esther talks about training in a similar vein:
Sometimes before we went to training the senior officers may order you to
do this. If you say no, that maybe this thing is not fine, they will tell you,
you are supposed to obey first. But during the training, they would explain
to us that in everything you have to apply your sense, because the senior
officer will tell you to do this and this thing is against the law regarding the
prison and when you do it now, when the case comes out you cannot be
able to defend yourself. So… if the senior officer says you should do that,
you can now even say to the senior officer that “Oga, this thing you tell me
to do is not right, what if some thing happens”.
In case the senior officer should insist on a prohibited action, Esther argues
for the necessity of having a witness on hand:
If the person that is senior orders you to do certain types of thing you have
to explain, “Sir, you know, this thing is wrong – it’s supposed to be like
this, Sir according to the law regarding this place”.
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In this example the system is personified in the form of senior staff issuing
orders that go directly against the rules. The rule breaking is not in itself the
problem. The problem is the positionality of the junior officer when it
comes to challenging the senior officer. Esther’s view here reflects what has
been taught in the training school but it perhaps underestimates the strength
of the hierarchical relations governing prison practice. As she puts it:
You can even take fear because you don’t know your right and your left
and you do it. You say it is my officer, the person who is senior to me
ordered me to do so.
A mixture of ignorance and fear but also the paramilitary norm of obeying
orders presents a huge barrier to the possibility of young recruits
challenging senior staff, despite Esther’s optimism and training school
teaching. Presumably the same applies to external interventions.
A shift in contexts of action and movement through time entails a trajectory
that prison officers sometimes refer to as getting used to. This is about
increasing familiarity with new conditions and circumstances. It is also
about levels of adaptation. In the following example Akueke describes her
shift from fear and discomfort in relation to inmates towards a recognition
that it is part and parcel of the job. This recognition seems to allay her fears.
I love the service, but the uniform… you know I was not used to it. I was
feeling uncomfortable. After time I got used to it and about getting scared
of the inmates. When you think about it the majority are just men, men,
men, men that you see, before you pass inside and see the women. I was
scared that they might rape me, they might you know, so I was so scared…
You think maybe this one here will harass you, you don’t know how they
might do it whether they might use charm or what… so I used to wonder,
but I thank God that I stopped wondering and come to realise that’s what
the service entails.
What does it mean to get used to being scared of the inmates? Here again is
an example of a shift from emotion to cognition.
It would be inaccurate to claim that senior staff are a homogenous,
conservative bunch consciously resisting the progressive new blood entering
from the school. (It would be just as inaccurate to claim that all the new
blood are progressive). Officers are careful to state that senior staffs’
responses to junior staff vary from person to person:
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It depends on the individual. You find out that some of our officers are
very good to the junior ones whereas some are not very good, but all in all
we still work together. (Makuda)
Makuda downplays any sense that he might not be well-treated by senior
staff:
They say “Yes, now you are trained prison staff so you can work the way
you are working”… I look like a newly trained staff but it’s just for a short
time… They didn’t treat me too bad. They just treat me as a colleague.
Akueke suggests that the newly trained staff member bears the
responsibility for the way senior staff respond to them:
It depends on mainly you, the staff. It’s okay. It’s just okay. It’s only
maybe when you do something wrong that they will call you and tell you,
you have just been trained and you are misbehaving it is not good.
Prison officers are not merely leaves blowing in the wind, but actors forging
their own trajectories of everyday practice. Gideon claims for example to
prefer to mix with persons of higher rank than himself, crossing the
boundaries one might imagine governed practice:
For me personally I like to get with people of high rank.
When I asked about whether people of high rank were happy to mix with
him he responded:
Some mix, some don’t mix. When they see you as a small rank they think
“Ha, this boy coming through”… So when they see this rank they feel I
don’t have much knowledge of the job but you do know what you are
doing, if you are well trained and you didn’t play when you were in school.
If you stay here for some months you can really understand more even than
those who have worked many years. I look to go on with those who know
better than I. Some will like you, some will not like you. When they see
your rank they will not like you. You try to respect them. If you have a
problem some things you want to know from them, you go and say, “I have
a problem how do I go about doing it?” Some will tell you some will not
tell you but most people tell you. They want the job to continue.
Demonstrating a persevering stance Gideon refuses to be put off by the fact
that his junior rank prejudices senior offices against him from the off.
Rather than accepting the rank divisions at face value he challenges them
based on his belief that whatever they might think, he does know what he is
doing. There is no trace of arrogance here. Indeed rather a sense of humility.
His strategy is to try to respect them even when they look down on his rank,
and to grant them status as experts by humbly asking their advice. This
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pragmatic approach bears fruit by accessing senior staffs’ own pragmatism
– most want the job to continue. Gideon’s stance is clearly forward looking
and strategic. He is aware that with hard work and through associating with
those who know better he has a chance of quickly reaching higher levels of
understanding than even those who have been there for years.
He also makes the link between training and having the necessary
knowledge. The necessary knowledge is conditional on not having played
whilst at school. There are connections evident here between ways of
participating in training, and ways of participating in work mediated through
the particular persons’ participation in the respective practices. It is perhaps
personal stance in relation to the two arrangements of practice that is more
important than say the content of the course vis-à-vis the content of the job.
Talk about (relations to) prisoners
I have discussed the way junior officers account for their relations with
senior prison officers and at the beginning of the chapter I introduced the
mutual constructions staff make of each other from their respective
positions in the training schools and the prisons. Another construction is
worth examining, namely the ways in which prison officers construct,
understand or conceive of prisoners. This is vitally important because such
understandings frame to a degree, in collaboration with other local
institutional factors, the ways in which prison officers are likely to respond
to and interact with prisoners. Such understandings, in tandem with the
practices of ordering and othering discussed in chapter seven create the
subjective conditions that allow for, or disallow, practices, for example, of
mundane violence.
Given the previously emphasised significance of discipline in staff training
it is also important to consider what discipline means for prison practice and
the relationship between prison staff and prisoners. If one aspect of
discipline is about knowing one’s place within the social organisation of the
institution, then one can already see how the trainee, on entering the prison
as a trained, disciplined officer moves up a notch in the hierarchies – both in
relation to untrained staff, and more importantly in relation to prisoners.
Prisoners are always going to be the lowest in the hierarchy, and in that
position the most subject to discipline, where discipline is synonymous with
correction and correction implies violence (cf. chapter seven). And in staffs’
and society’s eyes the most indisciplined! Within the context of discussions
about rank I asked a group of four female trainees whether prisoners were
seen as the lowest rank. The answer was no but they are seen as inferior to
us because they are there and we take care of them. This adjudged
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inferiority was not inbuilt but seen as a product of the position of prisoners
in relation to members of staff.
A contrast exists here then, between the disciplined officer and the
undisciplined prisoner, that likely has consequences for the treatment of the
one by the other. In the training school trainees learn to be disciplined but
also how to discipline others. And this discipline is undoubtedly nuanced
and mediated by officers’ constructions about prisoners.
Two dominant constructions emerge from interviews with junior officers in
prison that correspond to two dominant readings of the purpose of prison:
prisoners are victims/the rejected who need to be cared for and corrected or
they are sophisticated guilty criminals, a plague on society who need to be
punished and corrected. Whichever category is adopted correction is
required.
When prison officers speak of their ways of relating to and treating
prisoners they often ground their descriptions in an essentialising claim
about what prisoners are. Below I present some examples of the way
prisoners are conceived and how therefore they are claimed to be treated.
Makuda speaks about the aims of the job as being about creating good
persons who can be accepted by society:
I look on myself as if I was more or less doing a job that has to do with
God’s training, that I have involved myself in training someone to be a
good person. I like that most because I want them to be accepted in society
so I like to be putting them through what they are supposed to do. I want to
rehabilitate them, so I like that work.
Here the image of the prisoner is of a bad person not accepted by society,
therefore in need of training and rehabilitation. Gideon describes the
integrally relational nature of the job and of how prisoners are different
despite being human beings:
This prison department is a very nice job, you understand, it’s a job that
makes you have to be social. You have to know about human beings. You
have to know about human beings to know how to reach to their
problems…What we hear is very interesting These are human beings, they
have different manners, they have different behaviours, they have different
characters. You as a prison staff, it’s left for you to know how to handle
each and every one of them. They have problems, likewise, some of them
are here for one reason or the other, some might have done the thing, some
did not do it. That does not mean you have to match them. No, you don’t
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match them. You give them love and a sense of belonging. Let them
understand why they are here.
Gideon speaks of matching, the point being that just because prisoners have
possibly committed bad acts they should not be treated badly. On the
contrary they should be treated with love and a sense of belonging. You will
recall it was sense of belonging that Gideon found himself from being a
member of the prison service. It is apparent that he wishes to share this
sense with the prisoners. Even if they mistreat you they should not be
mistreated:
… Some of them have mental problems especially in the asylum if they are
put there… Some of them will insult you, some even touch you, what you
don’t like… It’s not for you to exchange bad ways with them… You know
that this group are here for reformation, to reform them, to come back to
mama. They are just like children. You are the parent.
The parenting image presented here, ties in with the idea of love and a sense
of belonging, but as mentioned earlier also with particular ideas about
upbringing and correction. Prisoners are to be cared for but also moulded. In
his study characterising total institutions Goffman emphasises the way in
which persons in such institutions are conceived of as “material upon which
to work” (Goffman 1961: 329). This view is echoed by Nigerian prison
staff. One prison officer I interviewed expressed this rather starkly:
The prison is like a manufacturing company whereby they bring the raw
materials and the prison officers process you and manufactures you into
finished goods and sends you back to society for better use. (Okonkwo)
In contrast to the image of the prisoner in need of care Esther presents an
image of the prisoner as not to be trusted and only interested in getting out:
Some come, they are not ready to learn anything, all they are after is for
them to get out… Their lives are very hard…You cannot trust an inmate,
because he is not happy staying in this place. If he find any chance he will
go, and if he go you too have gone…
Esther’s fear of the prisoner escaping is exacerbated by her fear of the
consequences for her should the prisoner escape. Her final remark “if he go
you too have gone” refers to the fact that if a prisoner escapes it is likely
that the officer responsible will lose their job or at least be transferred and
demoted. She grounds her evaluations of the prisoner in their ongoing and
current life situation – their “lives are hard” and they are not “happy
staying in this place”.
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Esther is acutely aware that the local stressors of being locked up can lead to
disturbances:
Some people they are not able to stand they are here. Many of them they
won’t be happy. They think that causing trouble can help them. They don’t
know that the best thing for them is to calm down and pray to God. After
all when John the Baptist was in the prison his own prayer helped him out.
When Joseph too is in that prison it’s only through prayer that makes him
come out. They just think they will go out by their power. At times they
will start fighting others, disturbing others and there is no peace.
Sometimes they will start a disturbance.
This situation is abetted by the fact that whilst not all are guilty, or at least
not guilty of what they are accused of they have perhaps been involved in
something “wayward” and therefore have a propensity for involving
themselves in trouble:
Some boys they are not doing anything but they are ready to kill anyhow,
and they come to this place. They are some number in one place. You
know at times, maybe they have been smoking Indian hemp and some of
them are victim of killing people, but maybe the reason they enter is not by
reason of killing, but he has tried it before carrying gun. When he
remembers those days and when the devil will come to remind him of those
past things he will start making trouble… But you cannot blame him
because it’s the condition (or her). It’s the condition that makes him to
behave like that…. What you have to do is calm them down and instruct
them in the word of God. (Esther)
The latter section here is about blame and responsibility. Is it the prisoners’
fault or are they victims of circumstances? Determined or responsible?
Gideon sees prisoners as having problems caused by a combination of
maltreatment and impatience; they are determined and responsible:
You see many people here they have problems… it’s your right to ask him
“Why are you here? Walk me through the contributors. Why have you
committed such offence?” He will be telling you the story of his life; how
come he did this, he did that. You know you get to know much of people…
Most of them try to get things when it is not the time. They don’t wait for
God’s time. Most people don’t wait for God’s time. So many people are
here because they have been maltreated, because they don’t have anybody
in society, they don’t have anybody so they have been maltreated.
How do prison staff relate then to prisoners who are both victims of
circumstance and contributors to their own downfall? Makuda, rather
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typically and like Esther above, frames his solution to their problems in
religious terms, 76 urging contentment with one’s lot in life:
I always like to communicate the way they live their life and how they will
please God and please themselves, not minding the worldly things that
would involve them in problems like this… They should just be content
with what they have and should not look onto others the way they are, that
they would want to be like them. Let them compose themselves and do
what will help them…
In this section I have presented some examples of the ways in which officers
typically talk about prisoners and the way they frame their own ways of
behaving towards them. These examples contribute to demythologising
what it means to be a prison officer and challenges views that reduce them
to intransigent perpetrators. Officers account for their conduct in nuanced,
varied and sometimes compassionate ways. It is clear that the job of the
prison officer is not an easy one. Careful judgements must be made about
the way one interacts with the prisoners. As Akueke puts it:
One has to be very, very careful. You cannot be too harsh and you cannot
be too open because if you are too open they might implicate you, you just
have to be not too open, not too closed, try to play the role of a leader, kind
of pretend. They will respect you and at least listen to you…
As in chapter four a dominant theme in these accounts has been the service
function that prison officers see themselves as fulfilling. Together with the
logic of penality and the ideology of corrections this is what human rights
interventions are confronted by.
I draw this section to a close with a quotation from Esther who expresses the
way in which she conceives of the relation between staff and prisoners as
interdependent. I asked about how she thought prisoners conceive of the
relation. She replied:
They regard us as prisoners and warders, as we regard them, because we
are here to help them and them to help us to, because our job is hand to
hand… In the mornings, we are the ones to open them to give them food, to
organise them, to go and fetch water and to make sure the water is there in
the well. If the water is not there, if the tap is not running, we will plan for
tankers to carry water from outside. At times overall in charge will send
somebody to look for tanker, say that they must carry water, come, so that
we can start giving them water in order to bathe, to drink…
76 Historian Peter Scharff Smith (2004) has highlighted the role of religion in penal
practices in Denmark in the 18 th century, arguing that rationality has not subsequently
displaced religion, as some have suggested.
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Summary
What can be concluded from this analysis of the movement from school to
prison and the new relations it entails? As indicated above the person of the
prison officer has been brought into focus within the context of
comprehensive relations. Whilst the previous two chapters focussed on how
institutional frames encourage participation in certain directions this chapter
has shown how single persons have particular stances in relation to their
trajectories of participation in ongoing practice, that in spite of discipline
and the strict hierarchised structures of relations there are clearly different
ways in which persons express their subjectivity and different ways in
which persons handle and understand both training and prison practice. The
objective scope of possibility is not as narrow as first appearances might
suggest.
This brings us to the end of part two of this dissertation. In part three
attention turns to the dynamics of an externally sponsored training
intervention that (whilst ignorant of it) confronts the deep context I have
portrayed and attempts to change it. Chapter nine presents, analyses and
problematises the intervention and chapter ten pursues further issues relating
to change seen from the perspectives of prison staff and outsiders.
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CHAPTER 9
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An externally sponsored training intervention
This chapter presents an intervention into the Nigerian Prisons Service by an
outside agency, more specifically by a Nigerian non-governmental
organisation (NGO). The previous analyses of standard practices in
Nigerian prison service training institutions (chapter six) and prisons
(chapter seven) serve as backdrop for the analysis of this different type of
training, a training that is of short duration, accompanied by a manual for
instruction, externally sponsored and run by an organisation from outside
the prison service.
In the first part of the chapter I present an ethnographic description of a
three-day training seminar, as it unfolded in practice and analyse some of
the materials produced by the intervening NGO on topics such as prison
reform, human rights and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for
the Treatment of Offenders (SMR). These documents reveal much about the
assumptions about change that the NGO operate with and are useful to
juxtapose with the understandings of prison training school practice, prison
yard practice and the everyday lives of prison officers that I have presented
in previous chapters (5-8). In the latter part of the chapter, I examine three
speeches made by senior members of the Nigerian Prisons Service, the
Ghanaian Prison Service and the intervening NGO, during the official
closing ceremony of the training.
The absence of substantive research on the dynamics of prison practices and
officers’ situated participation in these suggests that intervening agencies
are presented with certain challenges in relation to the sponsorship of and
application of human rights training in such contexts. A lack of baseline
knowledge about prison practices creates the problem of how to intervene to
change a set of practices one knows nothing about. A second potential
challenge comes from the import of models and assumptions from beyond
the local context. What grounds are there for believing that models of best
practice developed primarily in the West will have relevance elsewhere?
The same can be asked of the method of interventions typically applied.
Why is education always the preferred means of trying to bring about
change? 77 Thirdly, it is my contention that the complexity and depth of the
social field that such interventions aim at transforming is often
underestimated by intervening agencies. In what follows and in chapter ten
77 Buur points out that educational strategies are also the South African state’s response to
Amadlozi’s understandings of crime, discipline and moral community (Buur forthcoming).
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where I further explore issues relating to change, I further elaborate the
scope of these challenges.
Background
In spite of the proliferation of manuals describing best prison practice or
expounding upon the standard minimum rules for the treatment of offenders
or human rights as applied to prisons (e.g. Tabiu and Ladan 1998; Agomoh,
Mozzanica and Agozino 1999; Agomoh 2000; United Nations 2000; Coyle
2002) no two training programmes are likely to be identical. There are many
variables that play into the running of a training course for prison staff
however universal the content of the course is claimed to be. The training
course I will describe is no exception to this generalisation. For the first,
despite it being part of an ongoing intervention by Prisoners Rehabilitation
and Welfare Action (PRAWA) in Nigerian prisons at the national level, this
particular course was attended by a group of middle ranking prison officers
from Ghana. Secondly, the start of the course coincided with the start of the
basic course for senior officers held at the same venue that is the prison staff
college. Given this situation and for reasons that were not made explicit the
opening ceremony of the external intervention was merged together with a
welcome and climate setting for participants in the 13 th basic course for
senior officers. The ceremonial aspects of training courses in Nigeria cannot
be ignored, functioning as they do to give an indication of the dynamics that
frame the working and institutional practices of the participants and to a
degree what the training is confronted by and confronts. The ceremonies, as
performance, bring into relief the hierarchised structure of the service and
further cement relations of deference, subordination and domination
inherent in the paramilitary structures. I begin the discussion therefore with
the initial opening ceremony. And I end this chapter with an analysis of
speeches made during the closing ceremony.
The opening ceremony
The Ghanaians, the basic course trainees and the prison officers called for
the NGO-led course 78 assemble in the octagonal meeting hall at the staff
college, seated in rows of chairs facing a high table where high ranking
officials and members of the directing staff of the college sit. The Ghanaian
delegation are accompanied by the deputy controller of Ghanaian prisons,
and his Nigerian counterpart, the deputy controller general responsible for
training, is also present. The proceedings begin with a word of welcome
from the commandant of the staff college. Addressing the Ghanaian
78 The Nigerian officers selected occupied relatively senior positions in prisons in the local
state, e.g. officers in charge.
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delegation he speaks of how if it were not for lack of funding the staff
college would be a training college for prison staff across the whole of West
Africa. Responding to this later in the ceremony the Ghanaian deputy
controller remarks, "We have no prison staff college, we will regard this as
our staff college henceforth" which results in a round of applause as officers
from both Nigeria and Ghana signal their approval at this gesture, a gesture
that has a double edge. Reflecting the duality in the Nigerian desire to
provide a service and establish a kind of hegemony in the field the Ghanaian
controller responds with an expression of ownership that carries with it an
act of subordination. Both the articulation of the desire to be of regional
importance and the response that the Ghanaians would be happy to adopt
the staff college as their own can be seen as invocative, rhetorical speech
acts. The exchange is a product of the ceremonial setting and should be
understood as having ritual and symbolic value. It is part of the welcoming
procedures.
In a brief address by the Nigerian deputy controller, Nigeria is referred to as
a centre of learning and a centre of excellence. Tapping into contemporary
educational discourses he speaks on behalf of the NPS (in very gendered
terms) to the Ghanaian delegates, "Gentlemen… The men of NPS welcome
you". He emphasises the status of the Nigerian prison service in contrast to
the other paramilitary services: "Prison is known as the most disciplined of
the paramilitary services in Nigeria", underlying my previously stated
reading of the importance of discipline to prison staff. In addition he
describes the role external agencies have come to have in relation to NPS:
"PRAWA and other NGO's have been coming to our aid to help with
training". There is humility evident in this statement which functions to give
a certain degree of legitimacy to PRAWA who are to run the training
course.
It is worth noting that the relationship between NPS and PRAWA is
mutually beneficial beyond the immediate concerns of the provision of
training and unconnected to the issue of whether change actually comes
about as a result of the training. The relations between local, (I mean
indigenous) NGO’s and their international backers have both financial and
mutually legitimating character. PRAWA is, or has been, sponsored by
amongst others the European Union and Penal Reform International.
Understanding the relationship between intervening agency and intervened
on institution is a complex matter. In this instance the deputy controller
gives PRAWA his blessing implicitly acknowledging how NPS is grasping
after the NGO's coat-tails in its bid to be of regional significance.
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After the speeches of welcome each individual Ghanaian prison officer rises
to his or her feet salutes and gives their name and rank. Most of them are of
middle rank, many occupying the position of 2iC in the prison yards. The
procedure is identical in form to that which follows later when the Nigerian
trainees introduce themselves, but the manner of salute is quite different.
The Ghanaian salute is more fluid, slightly resembling a wave, in contrast to
the sharply executed fixed-armed salute of the Nigerians. The manners of
the respective prison services are embodied and habituated in different
ways. In these introductions they display their credentials corporeally to
each other.
After the introduction of the chief discipline officer and the chief drill
instructor, both greeted with ironic rousing cheers, the members of the high
table and the Ghanaian delegates leave and climate setting for the basic
recruits continues. The merging of the introduction of the Ghanaians and the
climate setting meeting of the basic course serves to enhance the status of
the prison service both towards the Ghanaians who witness the beginning of
a senior officers’ training course and to the Nigerian senior officers who
witness the service providing a service for Ghanaian officers. This is not
without significance.
The training-of-trainers workshop on good prison
practice
The following day the external intervention begins proper with yet another
opening ceremony where the deputy controller general again presides. A
banner declares that Penal Reform International (PRI) and the European
Union support PRAWA and NPS in the 2 nd Phase of Training of Trainers
Workshop on Good Prison Practice.
The aim of the 2 nd Phase of Training of Trainers Workshop on Good Prison
Practice is to “sensitise the officers on regional and international standards
regarding the treatment of prisoners” (Agomoh and Ogun, 2000: 3). 79 The
broader project that this training is a smaller part of, is aimed “at facilitating
good prison practice through training and capacity development of prison
officers” (ibid.: 3). The training course is designed to give officers insight
79 Such aims are supported by the UN declaration against torture that states “The training of
law enforcement personnel and of other public officials who may be responsible for persons
deprived of their liberty shall ensure that full account is taken of the prohibition against
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments or punishment…” (Article 5 UN
Declaration on Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment).
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into the United Nations' Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of
Offenders (SMR) 80 and prepare them to teach them to others. Participants
are rather diverse, some of them relatively well educated, for example with
a university education in social sciences, others with very little by way of
formal schooling. The criteria for participation is not level of education but
seniority within the service. Nigerian officers attending (men and women,
but mostly men) are from the local state, used to working in the prisons
under conditions partially created by the previous military regimes.
The workshop starts a couple of hours late. The participants from Kaduna
state fail to show up punctually and the co-ordinator apologises for the
delay. The desks are arranged around the hall as three sides of a rectangle
and officers gradually take their places grouped around the six large desks.
As participants wait they browse the materials that the NGO has produced,
particularly the manual on UN Standard Minimum Rules which functions as
the course guide. The NGO are represented by a male co-ordinator and two
women, one an observer, the other a facilitator who has taken time off her
job as a magistrate in the south of the country to attend. She is active not
only in this training context but also in local prisons in her state where she
visits and counsels prisoners. She is also studying for a masters in law
addressing the issue of prisoners’ legal status in relation to the SMR. A
journalist, sponsored by the NGO is also present to report on proceedings.
He is a member of the penal reform media network, an initiative instigated
by PRAWA. Three NPS resource persons, previously trained by PRAWA
are also in attendance, one a superintendent of prisons employed in the
training school, another a state controller with a Ph.D. and the other a
female officer from zonal headquarters in Abuja. Officers stroll slowly past
the open door in what looks like a marching formation - this may be
accidental or it may be an example of the sedimenting in bodies of
paramilitary discipline. Chairs continue to be set up. Materials distributed
include a notepad and pen plus the manual for the course.
Opening speeches are made and each participant introduces him or herself
in standard fashion. The co-ordinator starts to read from the manual and
after a short time is interrupted by the commandant speaking from the high
table informing him that the dignitaries are now leaving. The co-ordinator
continues running through the agenda. The female chief magistrate takes
over speaking rather softly. She introduces an icebreaker and then a list of
80 It is interesting to consider the question of the status of the UN rules. Should they be
read as political benchmarks or as rules of conduct? In addition, there is an important issue
of weighting to consider. What is neglected when so much attention is put on rules?
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"common" rules is developed... respect, communication etc. She announces
that it is a training of trainers (ToT) workshop saying "whatever you learn
today will be able to impact others" pointing out that officers are being
trained today to train others tomorrow. She does not explain how what they
learn today will be able to impact others. Each person is asked their
expectations. One participant says he hopes to build friendships. The chief
magistrate gives an introduction to the SMR and a treatise on the humanity
of criminals that closely follows the manual focussing on the idea that:
"there is hope in every human being". She advocates a "concentration on
ridding society of crime not criminals" and points out that UN legislation
needs to be "domiciled" into domestic Nigerian law to be most effective.
The female NPS resource person continues, describing how the SMR
attempt to humanise the penal system – the rules are a base line standard.
She starts quietly and gradually increases the volume. She is aware of the
theory – practice problem and tries to tackle it by stating "you can't change
anyone from what is printed unless you seek to practicalise it." She then
throws the question out to the floor seeking their input asking, "how can
they (UN SMR) be applied practically?" She invokes a difference between
knowing about the existence of the rules and their implementation, between
teaching and changing practice yet the strategies and techniques for how
practice might be changed are not on the agenda and the teaching context,
that is the class-based teaching seems in contradiction to the idea of actually
changing practice.
Unlike the co-ordinator who began the day reading from the manual, the
uniformed resource person is well-prepared and appears at home with the
material. Her attention to practice is likely rooted in her own practice base,
that is, in the fact that she is herself a uniformed officer. She speaks freely
without overt reference to the manual or notes describing ways of
influencing inmates' behaviour claiming it takes special qualities in a prison
officer.
The state controller takes over, a big man with a natural authority and
teaching style. He explicitly advocates a social interaction model of learning
– “we are all teachers”. After some confusion groups are formed and
Nigerians and Ghanaians are separated, the logic being it is best to have
people from the same establishments together so they can later work
together putting the training into practice. Five groups are formed, two
Ghanaian and three Nigerian. Each group is given an assignment.
addressing respective themes: personal hygiene, food, exercise and sport,
books, and inspection.
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The group assignments change the tone of the training as a shared energy
develops and the communication becomes “between person”
communication rather than purely didactic from facilitators to delegates.
Encouraging this and building on her previous efforts to get delegates to
think about and find their own solutions to problems the female resource
person says "we lecturers don't want to do the talking. We want the
problems to be identified by you". (Notice the language of problem solving).
As feedback from the groups continues this invocation is taken seriously
and officers vie for space to speak and to be heard. Rather strangely one
delegate gives feedback in his own language and later other delegates
suggest this was because he was not very well educated. I wondered
whether this was an allusion to the fact that he could not speak English but I
suspect something else. His intervention invoked a quite harsh response
from the state controller who called for “intellectual honesty” encouraging
delegates to "present the facts as they are... we are not here to criticise
Nigeria or Ghana or whatever". This intervention leads me to presume that
the officer in question had used a local language because he had something
negative to say that should not be understood by all, a kind of self
censorship that functions to exclude. Describing him as not well educated
was an indication not of lack of learning or knowledge but of poor
character. Education then, for prison staff, is intimately tied up with the idea
of the moulding of character. That is learning is understood as much more
integrated to personhood than in traditional Western theoretical
understandings (see later in this chapter).
Facilitators break for lunch and a few delegates stroll out. Others remain in
their groups in eager, vibrant conversation about water supplies. The
Ghanaian groups have joined forces and debate rages animatedly from their
side of the hall. After lunch of meat pie, samovita and soup the dialogue
continues. The chief magistrate introduces the issue of rights in relation to
security, an issue I have already shown to be extremely pertinent to Nigerian
prison service practice (see chapter one). Perhaps not surprisingly this issue,
raised as it is by one of the external facilitators, provokes an angry reaction
from a delegate who challenges her using the expression “you people from
outside” and inducing a rather defensive body posture from/in the
magistrate. The training has become less and less didactic as the day has
progressed and this incident illustrates a toleration of open conflict. Prison
staff are sensitive to accusations from outside and the magistrate’s defensive
posture suggests she is ill prepared for dealing with this sensitivity. From
this moment some delegates appear to switch off, no longer paying such rapt
attention and no longer quite so eager to engage in discussion. A murmur of
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frustration sounds that is challenged by an intervention from the floor: "this
place is a training ground, not a disagreement centre". Open conflict is not
so welcome after all.
Blindfolded and with eyes closed participants in the
human rights training engage in a “trust exercise”
Role-play I – a disciplinary hearing
The following day begins with a brainteaser (what is the function of
icebreakers and brainteasers? What assumptions do they portray?) and is
followed up by a role play exercise which is instructive for my research
purposes. The role-play goes over time. The curriculum dictated by the
manual serves as a framework for teaching rather than a strict dogma to be
obeyed to the letter. It is at least passively acknowledged that learning
occurs in spite of the content of the manual but within the framework it lays
out. Adhering strictly to the frame seems less important than allowing for
open and active participation. Resource persons supplement each other
during feedback to the “actors”, offering affirmative, process-oriented
feedback.
The role-play assignment involves participants acting out a scene typical of
prison practice, then repeating the scene incorporating the rules that they
have just been taught should govern practice. (The exercise assumes that
prison practice does not live up to the standards – otherwise one would
expect identical sketches). One of the groups is asked to act out a scene
around the theme “discipline and punishment”. Their role-play involves a
tragi-comic parody of a prisoner who is called to an internal disciplinary
hearing. Through the role-play officers demonstrate how they interpret the
SMR in terms of changed disciplinary practice. What is striking is the
difference between the first sketch – meant to be typical of prison practice,
and the second – meant to incorporate SMR. The primary observable
change is not their way of handling the prisoner but their way of behaving in
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relation to the senior officer, that is the officer responsible for the
disciplinary hearing. In the role-play where trainees are to demonstrate what
they have learned about SMR the officer escorting the prisoner is much
more formal and disciplined in his relation to his senior. He stands more
uprightly, marches more correctly and salutes more impressively. In the
second phase of the role play an additional change made is that the
punishment the prisoner is given is reduced. Yet, the prisoner is still
humiliated, forced to squat, pushed and hit. The officers interpret SMR in
terms not of prisoners’ rights, but in terms of their own relation to their
seniors. This interpretation has its roots in standard training school practice,
indeed standard para-military prison practice, where discipline (as an
expression of position in hierarchy), is a key feature. So this reading of
change is perhaps not surprising.
The role-play demonstrates two things that were changed by officers: the
relation to their seniors and the interpretation of rules governing
punishments. One could ask about the link between these two changes.
Whilst the first seems substantive and related to a dominant logic of penal
practice, the second appears more like a token gesture in the direction of
acknowledging that human rights is meant to give the prisoner at least
something, in this case a reduction in disciplinary sentence. Whatever the
link the truth of the matter is the treatment of the prisoner remains
unchanged. The role-play additionally illustrates the everyday nature of
violence directed at prisoners, what I called in chapter six mundane
violence.
Discussion
The role-play exercise can be seen as an attempt to build a bridge between
practice and theory, by inserting practical examples into the classroom. Yet,
on closer analysis, the performances do not function as examples of
practices to be changed. Rather the role plays are merely a pedagogical tool
designed to focus attention on the new rules and whether they have been
learned. They are about controlling knowledge entry (into the mind) and not
about actual practice. The questions being answered by the role-plays are
not about practice but about how much participants have understood.
Having said this, it is not the case that the behaviour of officers in the role
play goes unchallenged. Issues are raised about the appropriateness of the
actions displayed. Officers are asked why the prisoner was humiliated and
this humiliation is challenged on the basis of the SMR’s focus on dignity.
Facilitators emphasise that physical punishment does not engender respect
or change. And yet, I am left with a nagging doubt about whether facilitators
have adequately grasped the sedimented way in which physical punishment
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is part and parcel of prison practice and how for prison officers,
corrections/reform is tightly bound up with ideas of punishment. Presenting
a counter view of change is probably not enough to bring about change. I
address this theme more elaborately in the next chapter.
Role-play II - teaching the SMR
After a tea break the focus shifts from teaching the SMR and prison practice
to preparing delegates to become trainers in SMR. Drawing again on the
manual different ways of learning are described and different ways of
changing human behaviour.
Officers are instructed how they should train others in SMR. They are
assigned to design a short lecture, that they must then perform for the others
on the course. They do this and proceed to present their lectures to the other
workshop participants. The events following one presentation are
instructive. The participant is criticised, by course facilitators, for not
adequately carrying his audience with him. He is accused of not being clear
and persuasive enough, of not reaching his audience with the message in a
way that made them feel they were part of the training. From my point of
view this critique is misplaced, for how could the officer in question, on the
basis of one day’s training be expected to understand, “own” and
communicate the new material in a convincing manner? This illustrates one
of the absurdities of the training of trainers methodology demonstrating a
belief that it is simple to teach others about SMR and that it is equally
simple to be a trainer. The manual states “Users of the pack should find it
easy to impart meaningful learning to their participants… This book serves
as a reference manual for the quick implementation of Training on The
United Nations Standard Minimum Rules…” (Agomoh and Ogun 2000: 6).
Here the notions of ease and speed hint at fundamental problems with the
approach. When things are seen as so simple, weight and significance are
not given to the potential complexity that characterises any social practice.
It seems absurd to expect that participants can both learn something new,
relate it to practice, and teach it to others immediately.
Whilst delegates went diligently about their preparations, I fell into
conversation with a woman observing proceedings who expressed some
rather sceptical views about the value of training. She raised the question of
why money is ploughed into training yet not into bringing about concrete
changes in prison infrastructures. This made me begin thinking again about
the issue of how training makes a difference to practice. A related remark
from the previous day was, "Why, when the state loves incarcerating people,
does it resent spending money on the incarcerated?"
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I wondered about the practices of the uniformed resource persons, of how
they are influenced by their participation in previous training courses and
their current status as resource persons. Given the intransigence of the
prison institutions it is difficult to imagine that these individual officers can
make much difference. What room for manoeuvre do these resource staff
have in relation to their own work stations? Are they empowered to enact
changes in line with what they are teaching during this course or are they,
like delegates trapped in the institutional relations that seem to determine
practice? The example presented by Torhile in the previous chapter supports
the latter. I return to these issues in chapter ten when I explore barriers to
change.
Presentation and discussion of selected publications
1996-2002
PRAWA is not the only NGO involved in prison reform advocacy and
intervention in Nigeria but they are at the forefront in terms of published
materials and in terms of their unique collaborative relationship with the
prison service at the federal level. Other NGO’s, for example religious
groups, visit prisons and prisoners across the country, operating at the local
level making local arrangements between themselves and the prisons.
PRAWA has taken advantage of a “window of opportunity” and made
inroads at the federal level granting them access to a relatively high number
of prison staff, and making them well-known to staff across the federation.
To their credit PRAWA have succeeded in putting human rights on the
agenda of prison service staff in Nigeria. PRAWA’s intervention that I have
described above does not stand as an isolated training intervention but is
part of a longer engagement with NPS. And the training manual does not
stand alone either. It is part of a corpus of literature that PRAWA have
produced that offers a kind of self-contextualisation, both defining
themselves and the field in which they engage. Below I review five of
PRAWA’s publications from the six-year period leading up to my
fieldwork. Strictly speaking the first of these is a publication of the National
NGO Coalition on Penal Reform, Nigeria, but since the secretariat address
is synonymous with PRAWA I will permit myself to address it under this
rubric.
Directory of Penal Reform NGO’s in Nigeria (1998)
This 91-page publication in A5 format lists and provides brief descriptions
of 85 organisations whose work in some way encompasses elements of
penal reform. A graphical representation shows the different focus areas
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these NGO’s have. The three most prevalent areas are legal aid (22.4%),
religion/spiritual counselling (13.2%) and support services (10.5%). These
three areas account for almost half of the organisations (46.1%). Three
organisations (3.9%) are listed as involved with staff training, one of these
being PRAWA, another being CLEEN (whose publications are also of high
quality) and the third being the Legal Research and Development Centre
(who actually do not feature elsewhere in the directory). Only one
organisation (PRAWA) is listed as involved in penal reform policy
advocacy. The overwhelming majority focus on prisoners’ needs, an
ambivalent construct that enables action to be taken on behalf of others and
in their so-called interests, without necessarily having an understanding of
what those interests are.
The foreword to the booklet is written by the area director of the British
Council, who points out that the British High Commission, the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID) and the British Council
have all been active in the support of NGO’s working towards penal reform.
He writes about the booklet, “I hope that it will prove useful both as an
information tool to all interested parties but also to help to enhance the
primary goal of the coalition which is to strengthen the work of the NGO’s
in their work on penal reform”. It is interesting that the primary goal is
framed in terms of means and not ends. The goal is to strengthen the NGO’s
in their work. One could imagine an alternative primary goal being to
reform the prisons. Perhaps this is what is to be understood but the language
is not accidental. It is a common feature of “NGO talk” to speak at one step
removed, and it is a common feature too of PRAWA’s writing and NPS talk
on reform (cf. Kuuire’s speech below). 81
As well as listing the NGO’s the directory also provides a brief history of
the Coalition on Penal Reform which was established in 1997 following a
national prison conference organised by the British Council in collaboration
with PRAWA and some of the heavyweight Nigerian NGO’s, the Civil
Liberties Organisation (CLO), Constitutional Rights Project (CRP) and the
Catholic Justice and Peace Commission. I will not spend more time on this
booklet. Its relevance for my purposes is in situating PRAWA’s work and
the agenda of penal reform within a broader framework of multiple
organisations with multiple focus areas.
81 In contrast to this distancing strategy that focuses on means as ends, Nigerian politics
have a tendency to ignore means focusing exclusively on ends at least as revealed in
electoral campaign posters.
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Decongesting the Nigerian Prisons and Police Cells (1996)
The prisons are made to play a passive role in the chain of the criminal
justice administration. It is made to act as the stomach that have (sic) to
gulp and keep any food given to it. (Agomoh 1996: 34)
This 68-page, A5 formatted booklet, including monochrome photographs,
carries the sub-title “a handbook of practical strategies for the remand
population” and consists of six brief chapters, a conclusion, plus a draft
declaration on decongestion and a draft platform for action for consideration
by relevant parties. It demonstrates PRAWA’s early concerns with the
classic problem of Nigerian prisons – overcrowding. As well as an analysis
of the problem that addresses the police, the judiciary and the prisons, the
booklet also provides recommendations and pleas for action. It concludes:
Let the court sieve the wheat from the shaft (sic) promptly through the
speedy trial and disposal of cases!
Let the innocent be saved from the horrible effects of incarceration!.
Let our criminal justice system be made to be just, humane and effective!.
This is our prayer!!!.
(Agomoh 1996: 47)
The conclusion is headed “It is the will that we need” and contains the
expression of belief that “it is the WILL rather than MONEY that is the
most important factor needed”. Suggested by this claim is that the agenda of
the NGO is to strategically target the will of politicians and decision makers
yet it serves also to split will from material considerations that are surely
inextricably linked. Targeting the will of politicians may well be an
understandable acceptance that extra finances are unlikely to be made
available, making the only alternative to bring about change within the
given economic framework. Yet this seems to neglect the fact that reform is
unlikely to be engendered without co-operation of prison staff at all levels
and that their demands for improved welfare must be addressed. This issue
becomes part of PRAWA’s agenda at a later date but at this time seems to
go unrecognised. My point is that it is necessary to consider the will and the
money, ideas/attitudes and the material, discourse and practice.
Overcrowding in Nigerian Prisons (1999)
PRAWA return again to the issue of overcrowding in 1999 presenting a
discussion and statistical breakdown of the issue drawing, amongst other
sources, on a visit to seven prisons by the National Human Rights
Commission of whom the Executive Director of PRAWA is a member. It is
a short sixteen page booklet addressing four themes: 1. delay in the
administration of justice; 2. decaying infrastructure; 3. funding of Nigerian
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prisons; 4. overuse of prison sentence by courts. In the conclusion it reveals
that even prior to the current democratic dispensation there was awareness
at the highest level of the need to address issues of prison reform. General
Abdulsalam Abubakar set up a Presidential Committee on Prison
Congestion. He is quoted as having said, “Government will also embark on
extensive prison reforms with a view to decongesting the prisons and
providing a more humane atmosphere for inmates”. The Controller General
of Prisons is quoted as saying: “It is unfortunate that our prisons are not
exactly serving as correctional institutions right now”, going on to refer to
awaiting trial prisoners as “parked like sardines” (PRAWA 1999: 8-9).
Another indication that the recent movement towards advocating prison
reform is not a new thing is found in the workshop held in Abuja in
November 1998, Management and Reform of Nigerian Prison Service
(ibid.: 15). Regarding infrastructures the booklet cites a report written in
1991 by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies that states “a lot
of what constitutes contemporary practices and structures in the prison
system were put in place or conceived of in the 10 years between 1945 and
1955 when R.E. Dolan was Director of Prisons for the whole country”
(ibid.: 6). This booklet records the self-critical stance that Nigerian officials
and politicians have to their system of prisons. There is no denial that
prisons do not live up to acceptable standards. Controller General Jarma is
quoted as saying there is a need to build “more cells in our prisons and also
modernise them to make them look like model prisons because the way they
look now, they are completely outdated and I think they cannot conform
with the standard that we want at the moment” (ibid.: 7).
Manual for the Training of Prison Officer-Trainers (2000)
This 95-page, A4 formatted manual was “developed by” PRAWA’s
Executive Director and a marketing/management consultant with a
background in behavioural science. In the blurb she is also described as a
development activist.
Assumptions underlying the manual
I wish to examine the way this manual conceives of prison officers or put
more generally how it conceptualises personhood. The writers recognise
that the way prisoners are treated and the conditions under which they live
are largely determined by staff, by what they call “their skills, attitudes and
behaviour”. This is no accidental designation of what aspects of personhood
are relevant. Skills, attitudes and behaviours are the intended facets of
personhood that the manual targets. “The prison officers”, it is claimed,
“constitute the most singular organ that can be utilised in the provision of
support services to prisoners and the improvement of treatment of
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prisoners” (Agomoh and Ogun 2000: 3). However powerful this statement
might be as a rhetorical weapon against forces that ignore the prison officer
when discussing prison reform, a consideration of the status of this
particular conception of prison officers – reduced to skills, attitudes and
behaviours – is instructive, playing as it does into rather traditional
ahistorical, non-situated models of what it means to be human. What is
meant by “skills, attitudes and behaviours” and how they relate to officers’
practice in day to day working life is not explained because it is of course
self-explanatory within traditional psychological understandings of learning.
The manual provides materials for trainers, including an opening address,
brain teasers, a pre-programme letter and an outline programme – actually
everything one needs to run a training course, even in the absence of prior
knowledge. The manual encapsulates knowledge. It is a knowledge package
ready to be transmitted and delivered, ready to be dumped into the empty,
isolated heads of prison officers. The authors characterise the approach
adopted in the manual as “guided instruction” learning, an approach that
includes “lectures, group work, class interaction and expert analysis” (2000:
10). It is all about a “mind-set reshaping process” (2000: 10).
My intention is not to criticise the manual as such. It is a good example of a
state of the art manual but it carries within it illustrations of the paradoxes of
applying such an approach as a means of changing complex, social
practice(s). A gap is envisaged between “mind-set” and “ways of doing”
that the application of the manual is designed to bridge. But neither the
manual nor the theories of learning that underpin it address how exactly the
bridging of this gap is to happen. The manual clearly recognises that it is
ways of doing or prison officers’ participation in practice that requires
transformation yet it is not their participation that is the object of the
training intervention; it is their mind-set. The assumption is that changed
mind-set gives changed ways of participating in practice.
The writers do articulate the challenge of linking theory to practice:
Developing a manual to elevate the standards in a distinct environment
such as that of the prison service is always a challenge – in terms of the
need to tap into the experience of practitioners for practical examples and
gain access into the culture of the service, while maintaining a focus on the
goal of creating a new way of doing. (Agomoh and Ogun 2000: 6)
This is a rather instructive statement. The distinctiveness of the prison
environment is recognised and the aim of the manual to elevate standards
declared. The challenge is to be found in maintaining “a focus on the goal of
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creating a new way of doing” whilst accessing the culture of the service and
tapping into the practical experience of prison officers. Here we have prison
service culture (context), prison practice (experience at least) and changed
practice (new way of doing). Why is developing a manual a challenge in
relation to these factors? Perhaps because these factors don’t naturally
suggest the production of a manual as a means of bringing about a new way
of doing? A manual is not a direct or natural response to the defined
problem constellation but an imported, taken for granted method that
dominates the field, such that it appears the only sensible way of addressing
the problems it defines. Despite the designers’ wish to move prison officers
in the direction of “new ways of doing” they are trapped by a model of
learning that carries the manual with it as excess baggage. Despite the
challenge of creating a manual as a response to context, practice and an
intention to bring about change, a dominant scholastic paradigm that equates
learning with teaching, classrooms and textbooks, does not allow us to think
otherwise about what methods to use to bring about change. The textbook or
manual has become naturalised. It appears as the only solution, as the
inevitable and necessary accompaniment to teaching.
A third and final aspect of the manual I wish to consider is the enormous
power granted to the individual prison officer despite an acknowledgement
that prison structures frame and effect particular ways of acting:
The nature and structure of Prison systems creates a high potential for
prison officers to act in ways that violate human rights. Prison Officers
therefore need to be especially conscious and trained to avoid this.
(Agomoh and Ogun 2003: 20)
Phrased in this manner it seems that the aim of the training is to make prison
officers aware or conscious that they must resist the nature and structure of
the prison system, even to act contrary to the demands of the structures. The
individual prison officer is pitted against the prison system. Given the
understandings of the pervasiveness of the paramilitary structure, the
importance of discipline, and position within the ordering hierarchies, and
the logic of penality operating across prison formations that I have described
in chapters six and seven, this would seem a tall order. On the other hand it
is not easy to argue with a statement that says prison officers should be
trained to avoid committing human rights violations, despite the
arrangements of practice they find themselves in. The SMR themselves
express this same division claiming, with regard to officers that “it is on
their integrity, humanity, professional capacity and personal suitability for
the work that the proper administration of the institution depends” (United
Nations SMR Section 46(1)). Such a reading of the role of prison officers
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within such structures gives them both a huge responsibility and makes
them blameworthy should conditions and treatment not live up to the
standards. Integrity, humanity, suitability and professional capacity – these
are all individual characteristics. It is not the nature of the work, or the
practice of work tasks that is under consideration but the nature of
autonomous individuals. The legitimacy of the institutions and their
consequences is not open to question. Therefore the only alternative open,
when practices do not match standards, is to cast aspersions in the direction
of officers.
It is difficult to imagine how, whilst apparently ignoring social practice and
with such narrow conceptualisations of personhood, such interventions will
achieve their stated aims. In chapter eleven I highlight how such
interventions form part of a global(ising) agenda that contributes to the
continued “deviance” of the post-transition state as defined from beyond the
state.
Prison Link Training Guide (2000)
The underlying assumptions that lie behind the learning that was supposed
to take place during the workshop are made explicit in PRAWA’s Prison
Link Training Guide, another manual produced in connection with a training
programme called Prison Link that involves the training of key officers to
act as links between prisoners and their families in an attempt to foster
prisoner welfare. It is unusual for underlying assumptions to be made
explicit at least by course facilitators. Practice, especially well intentioned
practice, often conceals the fundamental assumptions that underlie any and
every form of intervention (cf. my discussions of NGO assumptions about
changing practice in chapter ten). In this instance the trainers were open
about their assumptions about learning. In the training guide, aimed to
supplement the manual on SMR a paragraph is given over to describing
“how people learn”:
Learning is a process of assimilation of information. While we may not
know exactly what goes on in our brains when we learn, there are certainly
two basic processes: first, new ideas and information are received and
“taken in” by the learner, secondly they are “digested” or assimilated to
become part of the learner’s mental make-up, sometimes modifying what
has been learnt. We must realise that the first process often occurs in a
superficial way, without leading to the second, in which case “true
learning” has not taken place. (Agomoh 2000: 39)
This was also emphasised during the course when one of the facilitators
admonished the participants urging them to concentrate and listen so they
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would be able to “transmit and transfer” what they had learned. In other
words the course was built up on the classic model of learning that underlies
much of the Western tradition of scholasticism. Learning is seen as the
abstract assimilation of pre-existent knowledge, persons as a kind of data
base or library and knowledge as a prepossessed unit to be given from
teacher to student (Dreier 2001). The assumption is that the same
knowledge can later be transmitted directly and therefore transferred to
others for use in contexts outside that in which it is originally distributed.
Newer theories of situated learning question these common assumptions and
illustrate how there is often a discrepancy between intentions of training and
the actuality of what is learnt. That is, what is taught is never equivalent to
what is learned. (Dreier in Nielsen and Kvale 1999; Dreier 2001; Lave
1993; Lave and Wenger 1991). 82 The question to ask is how are these gaps
sustained? The second assumption, that what goes on in the classroom is
somehow relevant to life outside the classroom also runs into problems
when confronted by the complexity of officers’ participation in ongoing
institutionalised social practice. How can we theorise the movement from
one to the other? Officers I interviewed were unable to explain how it made
a difference, if it did.
An alternative model of learning propounded by Jean Lave, Ole Dreier and
taken up by other Danish researchers in this field (cf. Mørck 2003 on
transgressive learning) is that learning is about changing participation in
ongoing social practice (see chapter three). To learn is to change one’s way
of participating in the ongoing practices of which one is a part. This seems a
helpful re-alignment of thinking when applied to the circumstances that face
NGO’s trying to make a difference in developing countries. The question
becomes how does one best intervene to create possibilities for change in
persons’ specific ways of participating in ongoing practices? What is
necessary to enable prison staff and prison institutions to operate
differently? In what direction should one look for solutions? What is the
target of intervention? Where should one begin? These are some key
questions that ought to concern interveners.
The closing ceremony
The training course ended with a closing ceremony attended by none other
than the Controller General of Prisons (CGP). I analyse below three of the
speeches made by persons at that ceremony which was followed by a lunch
82 The final progress report I submitted to the Controller General of Nigerian Prisons was
called Mind the Gap and alluded to this discrepancy.
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in the officers’ mess and soft drinks in the commandant’s office. The
training, framed as it is by the opening and closing ceremony must be
characterised in context, as located in a much broader set of practices and
arrangements of practices. The ceremonies and the speeches featuring in
them give some clues about these broader practices.
Examination of speeches
In the following section I analyse the manuscripts of three speeches, one by
the Director-General of the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS), one by the
Controller General of Nigerian Prisons and one by the Executive Director of
PRAWA and member of the National Human Rights Commission. I attempt
a comparative analysis paying particular attention to the way in which the
course is portrayed, reflected upon and given legitimacy and status. I also
examine how the speeches function to position the speakers in particular
ways in relation to issues of reform and human rights as well as current
conditions in prisons for staff and inmates.
Speech by Mr. Richard Kuuire Director-General of Ghana Prisons
Service
Kuuire's speech consists of eleven substantive paragraphs. The first and the
last are expressions of personal pride firstly at being able to participate in
the closing ceremony of the workshop and latterly at being "associated with
the evolving relationship between the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS), the
Nigerian Prisons Service and other collaborators". Essentially these are the
three main figures in the speech and the central thrust is the articulation by
the GPS and NPS of a desire to establish a formal collaborative relationship.
In his initial expression of pride he refers to the preceding days’ events as a
"memorable occasion" and he expressly articulates these events as a
collaborative project:
It gives me extreme pride and satisfaction to be here with you on this very
memorable occasion in the collaborative effort between the Ghana Prisons
Service, the Nigeria Prisons Service and PRAWA and particularly at this
closing ceremony of the Trainer (sic) of Trainers workshop on good prison
practice and human rights standards.
The first four paragraphs are of a personal nature, the personal pronoun
dominating. Referring to the training course as an "international workshop"
Kuuire acknowledges PRAWA's involvement, notably the Executive
Director whose speech has preceded his own, and he expresses gratitude to
the CGP and staff for hospitality. The importance he attaches to the visit is
emphasised when he refers to problems in Ghana in relation to internal
security that could have caused him to postpone. "However" he says "as a
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result of the extreme importance attached to the visit, I had to try to make it
and I am very happy to be with you".
In the fifth paragraph, he switches from the personal to the organisational
speaking from his position as representative of the Ghana Prisons Service
again expressing gratitude, referring to the course as a human rights
workshop. I find the different labels given to the course rather interesting
suggesting that the course has a kind of definitional fluidity to it, making it
relatively easy to co-opt.
Whilst the first five paragraphs are introductory and short, the following six
paragraphs are longer and more substantial. In paragraph six the aims and
purpose of the visit are described as being to build on already existing links
between the two countries, links that he claims date back to the "preindependence
era" yet which have never been formalised:
It is against this backdrop that we recognise the need… to establish formal
working relationships between the two Services.
Paragraph seven takes the form of an announcement of the results of the
discussions that Kuuire and the Nigerian CGP have been holding during the
previous days. The tone is one of declaration though the substance of what
is declared is actually more preliminary than it sounds. Kuuire speaks of an
agreement having been reached "in principle… that we should formalize the
relationship". The Nigerian CGP has agreed to pay an official visit but with
the attached qualification "barring any unexpected circumstances". And they
have "agreed to work out the details of a Memorandum of Understanding".
All these agreements take the form of shared intentions or plans for things to
do in the future. In this respect they lack contemporary substance. Or rather
their contemporary substance is to be found in them being announced as if
they articulated substantial agreement. They create an impression of cooperation
and collaboration. 83
83 At a Danish NGO forum meeting I attended on the facilitation of organisational
development a point was made that as soon as management or managers make a plan they
read it as implemented. The declaration of a plan becomes synonymous with the plan’s
implementation, with a changed practice, with an end result. A sense of time, a sense of
process and potential obstacles on the way to the goal become absent to management
because to have printed and made official the plan is to have achieved the goal. The
position of NPS on human rights and prison reform seems similar e.g. the circular is sent;
now we have aftercare. Human rights are inscribed in the Nigerian constitution so therefore
we have human rights in prison. The interesting question becomes how has practice become
invisible? How has the question of how we achieve the goal been evaded? One answer is
because it is performed as if it was real.
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In the following paragraph the ambitions of the respective services to
influence governments and possibly try to establish "a sub-regional
Association embracing Heads of Corrections /Prisons Services for West
Africa", are articulated. Again these ambitions are framed in terms of
agreement to "work out the details" and "to explore the possibility".
In paragraph nine, laying a foundation for invoking the necessity of human
rights training, Kuuire draws a comparison between the Ghanaian prisons
and the Nigerian prisons in terms of the problems they face:
These hydra-headed problems include overcrowding and attendant
diseases, inadequacy of equipment in the workshops to facilitate vocational
training of inmates, inadequate transportation, under-funding, poor
perception of the Prisons Service by the public because of existing poor
conditions and old dilapidated structures.
Having laid out these problems and pointed out the impossibility (due to
"ailing third world economies") of constructing "prison hotels", he goes on
to declare that
…it is my firm conviction that the proper treatment and the humane and
dignified handling of prisoner is much more important than the mere
imposing beauty of physical structures.
His rhetorical purpose in making this move from material structures to
moral treatment is to pave the way for praising the initiatives of PRAWA
that the course has embodied, and which he finds "commendable". From
another perspective it is a potentially counter-productive move, serving as it
does to shift attention from the material conditions that frame treatment of
prisoners and which could be seen as preconditions for decent treatment. He
makes a double appeal to prison administrators advocating adequate training
for staff in human rights and adequate constructive vocational activities for
prisoners.
The necessity for change is underlined in the tenth paragraph where he
makes explicit the links between a safe society and a well-functioning
prison service. He makes a humble plea to governments asking them to
…urgently consider raising prisons on their priority lists… to spend a little
more on prisons and prisoners, since by keeping prisoners away from
harming law-abiding citizens, we contribute our quota to national security
and overall national development.
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Finally before closing he returns to the theme of collaboration offering one
more solution to the problems outlined previously. This time the
collaboration he encourages is between the different agencies of the
criminal justice system, referring to the prisons service as "at the receiving
end" of that system. Here he hints at the problems of the prison services as
having determinants beyond themselves. He concludes by reiterating his
happiness at being involved in an "evolving relationship" and expresses his
hopes for this:
By this co-operation and collaboration, we hope to improve upon our
service delivery and making (sic) our societies safer.
Speech by Alhaji Jarma, Controller-General of Nigerian Prisons
Jarma's speech is brief, consisting of only five paragraphs. Notably in the
heading of the manuscript Jarma describes the course as organised by
PRAWA in collaboration with NPS, the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) and PRI with the support of the European Union. He
does not list the Ghanaian Prisons Service in this overview of collaborators.
From the perspective of NPS the Ghanaians are not joint organisers but
recipients. This re-orientation puts Kuuire's claim in a different perspective.
Jarma is keen to emphasise the international agencies involved with the
project.
In his opening paragraph Jarma expresses his happiness at being present for
the closing ceremony and the plan to officially present the training manual
to officers, during the ceremony. Utilising a language borrowed from NGO
and development discourse, and clearly briefed, Jarma reiterates the purpose
of the training seminar as "to redefine and re-orient… members of the
prison service on human rights practices with emphasis on the United
Nations Standard Minimum Rule (sic) for the Treatment of Prisoners." He
expands further:
The importance of this project cannot be overemphasised. It is a key
project to support the capacity development of institutions of criminal
justice system - a main trust (sic) of sustaining democratic principles and
good governance. The past military rule has long suffocated all institutions
of governance especially the criminal justice system. The need to train and
retrain our officers and men towards the respect of human rights principles
is of great importance.
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The following two paragraphs sound more appropriate as a sales pitch on
behalf of PRAWA to international donors 84 as Jarma lists their programmes
and commends their initiative, innovation and comprehensiveness:
(PRAWA) provides support both at the policy making level and the service
delivery level. For this I wish to sincerely thank PRAWA.
He goes on to thank and commend all those who have supported PRAWA,
in effect reaching out to these organisations in the hope of continuing
support. As he says, "the government alone cannot shoulder all the
responsibilities".
In contrast to Kuuire's speech Jarma only spends one paragraph on the
collaboration between GPS and NPS saying how delighted he is "that this
venture is taking place during my tenure as the Controller General". Further
remarks build on this referring to his personal commitment to the
collaborative venture. He "look(s) forward" to "concretising this
collaboration further", he states in closing. One has to contextualise these
expressions of hope and goodwill against the background that as he states
them he knows that within 4 months he is to retire and be pulled out of the
service. This would not be so significant if he spoke only as representative
of NPS but he goes to great pains, utilising the personal pronoun repeatedly,
to emphasise his personal commitment to the process and referring to the
Director General of Ghana Prisons Service as "my dear friend". The
promises and intentions come to ring hollow.
Speech by executive director, Ujo Agomoh, PRAWA
This much longer manuscript (30+ paragraphs) has all the characteristics of
a cut and paste report/evaluation designed to be submitted to a donor
agency. Reversing the title of the workshop in contrast to Jarma, Agomoh
calls it the Training-of-Trainers workshop on international human rights and
good prison practice, foregrounding the international aspect rather than the
local. This reflects PRAWA's support constituency in the international
human rights/penal reform movement. (Contrarily it is not surprising that
the Controller General of Prisons foregrounds prison practice in his
84 One could speculate as to whether Jarma’s sales pitch and positive appraisal is surprising.
Might one not expect strained relations between a prison authority and a reform-minded
NGO? Perhaps this is a sign of a shift in development/NGO discourse towards alliances
with key institutions rather than confrontation? Another sign of global liberal governance
(Duffield 2001) and self-disciplining (see chapter eleven)? RCT also has experience of high
level meetings with ministers and prison chiefs to discuss reform issues, for example in
Latin America.
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appropriation of the title for the workshop.) In common with Jarma,
Agomoh does not grant the Ghanaian prisons collaborative status. Her pitch
is more in the direction of seeing them as a potential future market.
Throughout her speech Agomoh documents past achievements, describes
the impact of current interventions and prepares the ground for future work
in Ghana.
She begins by giving some general information about PRAWA, describing
in the first sentence the vision of PRAWA as being "to become a reference
point for effective penal reform in Africa", already establishing an
expansive, geographical intention. PRAWA's method is two fold: to
facilitate "the improvement of the criminal justice/penal system and
providing practical support to prisoners". Training is a strategic aspect of
PRAWA's vision and it is seen as "a means of entrenching "correct" and
supportive mindset into the learning process of the handlers of our custodial
services" (cf. PRAWA 2000: 4). This is a rather telling statement. For the
first, the use of the word entrenching implies something static to be
delivered and wedged in, fixed. That which is to be fixed is a particular
mind-set, a setting of the mind that is correct and supportive, clearly an
evaluative and normative project but also implying a particular model of
mind as blank and ready to be imprinted upon. At least the old slate can be
wiped and a new set entrenched. Another point of interest is the way prison
staff are referred to as "handlers of our custodial services", not as warders,
or prison guards, or human rights violators but as handlers of a service, kind
of middlemen we could say between society and prisoners. Prison officers
are portrayed less as guards and more as service providers which is a
significant rhetorical move consistent with PRAWA's mission to change the
way prison staff are perceived by the public. Indeed the language actually
shifts during the sentence beginning with a reference to prison officers and
ending with the reference to handlers, clearly implying through linguistic
means that training interventions bring about this shift.
Similarly to Jarma the language of development discourse is appropriated
and sustainability, impact and institutional engagement are talked of. Later
the five programmes of PRAWA are described in some detail these being
Training and Capacity Development (TRACAD); Penal Reform Advocacy
(PERA); Human Rights Monitoring (HURIM); Rehabilitation, Care and
Support Services (RECASS) and Community Justice Programme (COJUP).
The names and the acronyms are also clearly rooted in NGO and donorspeak.
Returning to the first paragraph PRAWA's Executive Director is also
interested in underlining the importance of collaboration which she terms
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"institutional engagement between NGO's and relevant government/public
agencies". Giving the interventions a historical context she states,
… this approach we believe is the only practical way to facilitate effective
prison and penal reform initiative given the long years of military rule,
gross human rights abuse, and utmost lack of respect for rule of law which
characterised Nigeria and several other African countries.
Here, once again reference is made to "other African countries". It is clear to
whom this sales pitch is directed. One key aim of PRAWA's programmes is
to demonstrate
…the need to change the attitude of prison officers and promote
professionalism and adherence to human rights principles.
The way to achieve this aim according to Agomoh is "through capacity
development and the promotion of good practice through training of prison
officers".
After describing the various programmes PRAWA has initiated, Agomoh
describes the process the human rights training has been through. The
programme began in 1998 with the training of a core group of trainers. In
August 2001 the second phase began. Agomoh documents the
"achievements of the first phase on which the second phase is anchored"
seeking to legitimate the ongoing work and show it has a history and a wide
ranging geographical spread across Nigeria. The Kaduna workshop was the
eighth workshop during the second phase within a period of about nine
months between August 2001 and April 2002 and 157 officers have been
trained. Officers selected for training were officers in charge, chief warders
and inspectors of prisons, those who "have the responsibilities of highest
decision making in the prison and maintaining order, discipline and
security…"
Various recommendations that have emerged from the training so far are
listed in the speech as well as the results of a statistical survey "highlighting
the readiness of the service and the present window of opportunity given by
the commitment of the top hierarchy of the NPS and the present democratic
dispensation in the country." Here we have a self-sustaining strategy, a
justification for the ongoing work which precedes the plea that the
Ghanaians will also seek to involve PRAWA in their domestic plans:
We hope that with the involvement of the Ghana prison Service this very
innovative scheme will be extended to Ghana and the prisoners and the
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general public - the final beneficiaries of the scheme will begin to receive
the concrete impact of the project.
This final reference to the public as the main beneficiaries suggests an eye
directed on the presence of the media at the closing ceremony. Each of the
speeches show a clear performative agenda. As texts they tell us much, but
as performed texts they tell much more. It is worth recognising that the
audiences are complex and multiple. The speakers speak both to each other,
themselves, the trainees and the public through the press.
Externally sponsored interventions then have significance beyond their
intended aims. They are also tools in national and regional politics. They
involve alliance-building and networking. Interventions themselves function
as rhetorical devices positioning, in this case NPS and Nigeria in a particular
relation to international donors and local neighbours. There is much more to
interventions than stated aims. These speeches, given as they are at the end
of the three-day workshop, function to situate the training within an ongoing
international and regional discourse where prison services are institutionally
engaged with NGO's who are backed by international agencies with
particular agendas.
Summary
This chapter has presented and problematised a human rights training
intervention, contextualising it in relation to ongoing reform discourse in
Nigeria and in relation to three slightly different perspectives on the
training’s significance. The flavour of critique emerges from a clear
confrontation between the models of personhood underlying the
intervention and its method and the persons-in-practice perspective I am
seeking to develop as an account of persons’ complex engagement in social
practice. In the next chapter the problematising flavour continues as I
further examine issues relating to change in relation to the current ongoing
practices of prisons and intervening agencies: how do prison staff and
intervening agencies understand change?
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Perspectives on changing practice
Change in relation to practice
Without understanding the obstacles and opportunities confronting those
who want to bring change, we cannot comprehend fully how justice can be
achieved in Africa. (Welch 1995: 4)
As stated at the beginning of this dissertation, this project falls within and
speaks to a research theme about the dynamics of state security apparatus
and the possibilities for change. I have introduced the complexity integral to
prison staff trajectories of participation and examined the significance of the
movement of trainees from the school to the yard in terms of relations
between training and practice, relations between junior and senior staff and
ways of construing prisoners. I have explored prison practices and training
practices via the conceptual lens of persons-in-practice, in terms of practices
of ordering and othering, with discipline as a dominant backdrop. And I
have presented and analysed a particular example of an intervention
designed to change “mind-sets” from a perspective concerned with the
transformation of prisons and the promotion of human rights and minimum
standards.
It has not been my intention to document change processes and yet change
as a theme has been recurrent during this project. Three areas stand out.
Change as an abstract notion is implicated in prison officers’ understandings
and practices in relation to work with prisoners and the aims of the service
to rehabilitate, reform and reintegrate. Change as an abstract notion is
invoked by trainees when they discuss their conversion from undisciplined
civilians to disciplined paramilitaries and change is an explicit though
under-theorised aim of NGO’s seeking to sensitise prison officers to issues
of human rights. Not only does change as a theme recur but changes are also
ongoing. Officers are transferred from one job to another. Training courses
end and new ones begin. Family members die and babies are born. The
everyday lives of prison officers are not static; neither are prison officers
passive recipients of the changing conditions that life presents. Persons in
practice actively handle changing life circumstances. Their lives are
construed by their participation not in ongoing, static, identical, day to day
routines but by their participation in ongoing changing practices. Change is
ubiquitous and forms of change multiple, having different significance for
different persons as they make sense of their lives across a variety of
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practices. A change in a family constellation is likely to matter in a different
way than a change in rank or job location.
I have called this dissertation “confronted by practice” and I have
endeavoured to present the deep context of prison officers as they conduct
their lives in order to demonstrate what external agencies are confronted by
as they seek to encourage transformation. The material I have presented in
chapters four through eight confronts external agencies with a challenge.
The material presents a gap between ideas about changing a system
demonstrated in intervention practices and the everyday participation in
changing practice that prison officers engage in. 85 This is essentially a gap
between outsider and insider, between attempts to change practice and
ongoing participation in changing practice. It is my contention that this gap
is important. This dissertation aims not to bridge the gap but to make it
visible by revealing practices and problematising interventions and their
assumptions.
In this chapter I seek to insist on examining change as a complex specific
phenomenon that prison officers make sense of in different ways. Change,
like learning and knowledge, presents a challenge to write about because it
seems so self-evident. When we hear the word we act as through we know
what it means. I endeavour to show that it is necessary to challenge the
apparent givenness of understandings of change, to move from the abstract
and unspecified to the concrete.
What understandings of change are utilised in relation to prisoner reform
and in relation to the training of officers? The structural homology I have
described between training school and prison suggests that theories of
change/reform as applied to prisoners and as applied to trainees are much
the same. They are individualised, moral, correctional, linear theories that
aim to mould characters. These understandings reveal themselves
incidentally however in a complex practice of moral education achieved via
the disciplining of bodies within an ideology of corrections, governed by a
logic of penality.
External to the prison service, NGO’s aim to improve conditions for
prisoners, that is change institutional practices via the promotion of human
rights and the teaching of the standard minimum rules. Here the change
envisaged is institutional yet the same individualised, moral, linear route is
85 There is an intentional ambiguity to the phrase changing practices. Here it refers both to
the way in which practices do change as officers participate in them and that they
potentially change as a result of officers’ participation.
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taken in pursuit of that change. Individuals are urged to adopt shared
standards, and follow international conventions, the assumption being that
they can as individuals alter ongoing practices in the prison, despite the fact
that prisons and the structures that govern them seem remarkably immune to
the attempts by individuals to change them. One way prison officers talk
about change is in relation to its absence where the scope of possibilities are
seen as limited by material conditions.
Barriers to change
A group of male trainees I interviewed reflected on change. They stated the
“service is actually taking new shape” though there “is still a lot to do”.
Their point was that whilst the language of reform is present the
infrastructure remains absent:
Reformation policy has been introduced very long ago but up to now it’s as
if it’s yet to take a step… just ringing in the mouth but when you come to
the physical, to the practical aspects of it, it is still lacking.
The prison service aims to reform, rehabilitate and reintegrate prisoners yet
it is arguable whether much reform or rehabilitation actually takes place. I
asked Torhile about the tension between the aims of the service and its
limited success in achieving these aims. His response describes both the
material limitations on the service and the resignation, even defeatism it
leads to. It reflects to some extent the response of the female trainee to her
punishment that I described in chapter five:
There are a lot of problems that leads to things not happening, when we
talk about even logistics in prisons, the under-funding, the infrastructure.
When we talk about reformation or rehabilitation we need funds to be able
to beef up the workshops, we need to build workshops, we need to get
experts to train the inmates, we need teachers, we need to have schools to
give education, to teach the inmates and we need logistics that move the
inmates to court like the awaiting trials. To take them to court, we need
logistics for that, we need the staff to do things like that but because the
prisons are really under-funded these things cannot be done. Oftentimes we
find that the job of the prison is really just fixed on the security.
Problems cause things not to happen. There are obstacles that prevent the
achievement of goals and these involve logistics, infrastructures, and
financing, that is, generally speaking lack of resources. And the ultimate
result as Torhile concludes is that oftentimes we find that the job of the
prison is really just fixed on the security, as I pointed out earlier that is on
maintaining order, making sure things stay the same. The legal statute is
fulfilled but the aims of the service are not. As Torhile goes on to explain
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this is rather unsatisfactory for staff, especially given the fact that the
paramilitary structures leave no space open for complaint:
They aren’t allowed to complain, that is the thing. They can’t complain. So
we feel defeated… just do what you can do, come to work and see that
there is no rioting or escape, then it’s time to close. You say hallelujah and
you close and you go home.
I wondered aloud about the implications of the tension between intentions
and outcomes and about the passivity the prison officer is obliged to display
in the face of it. Torhile certainly does not see resistance to change as an
endemic characteristic of the prison officer. Quite the contrary (at least in
this instance):
The prison officer feels very strongly about change. You can change the
image if you have the wherewithal to do it. But the problem is like I said
earlier the wherewithal to actually carry out this change. The prison officer
sees himself as a change agent but then he does not have the logistics to
carry out what he actually could have done if given the input and the
implements to do it.
The prison officer sees himself as a change agent. This is a rather
remarkable statement of identity-in-practice, especially given the previous
statements that delimit the possibilities of anybody changing anything
within the limits circumscribed by the lack of resources available. How does
Torhile maintain this belief in himself as a change agent in the face of the
resistance to change he meets in practice in the prison? I choose to leave this
question hanging for the moment and turn instead to examine some further
limits to possibilities for change with reference to institutional practices.
Local limitations to changing institutional practices
As Torhile began work in the yard after many years in the training school he
was confronted with the challenges of how one instigates change. He
describes how he has tried to change the practice whereby the prisoner is
obliged to sit on the floor or squat during reception boards. There are certain
things he does not allow but other things he has been unable to change:
We don’t do it (that is slap the prisoner – amj) in Makurdi, even if it was
done before, before I got there but now I got there we don’t do it. I don’t
even allow the prison officer to stand behind the prisoner…
It looked really intimidating.
But now it is still intimidating what they do. The rules I have been unable
to change because they will not accept it, the warders, the officers they are
too ? so they will not accept it and the OiC too, that now in our own
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admission board/reception board the prisoners sits on the floor… while the
officer in charge is up there looking down, so when I ask them why, I try to
ask them why, I try to ask the chairman “Why is the prisoner sitting on the
floor? Why don’t you allow him to stand or give him a chair to sit?” No,
they don’t want to listen to that – “look at him, when he sits on the floor, he
kind of respects the man standing or the man sitting in the chair”.
Torhile emphasises the difference he has made at the same time as
acknowledging the limitations of his power. He does not allow slapping and
he does not allow the escorting officer to stand intimidatingly behind the
prisoner. But the procedures remain intimidating. The prisoner is still kept
in a subservient position seated before the chairman who sits above him
behind the desk. Torhile’s way of challenging this practice is to ask them
why, to seek to undermine the grounds for keeping the prisoner seated on
the floor but his colleagues do not listen, their answer to his question being
that the subservient position enforces respect of the authority in the chair.
Look at him, they say, objectifying and positioning the prisoner, in their
speech act. It is almost as though they see their argument for retaining the
prisoner in such a position as being self-evident based on viewing him there.
It is a circular argument that functions to maintain the status quo and
illustrates the fixed nature of such practices, even when challenged. The
argumentation is self-perpetuating and does not leave any openings for
change. The practice appears impermeable. Even when changes are
introduced the dynamics of othering and the logic of penality continue to
exist suggesting that a more comprehensive approach to understanding
change is necessary.
Torhile seems clear as he describes this incident that his own progressive
stances are not welcome and that what he has been teaching in the schools,
drawing on an over twenty-year old text is largely irrelevant – not only
because it is outdated but because of resistance in practice.
In the prison Torhile is accused of being theoretical, yet his suggestions for
change appear quite pragmatic. Another example he relates is from a visit of
the chief judge for jail delivery. (Jail delivery is the term given for the
delivery of justice in the prison during a visit of the local state’s chief judge
who presides over cases in situ.) It is normal practice for all the officers to
line up outside to honour the arrival of the chief judge. Torhile sees this as
old fashioned and does not recognise the necessity since the judge is there to
do a job of work, not to be fêted. In Torhile’s view it should be adequate for
the OiC to meet the chief judge at the gate. Instead of the ceremonial
honouring Torhile proposes they serve food for the judge later in the
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proceedings with the idea that it would be an opportunity to engage him in
discussion.
I asked Torhile on another occasion about the possibility of changing the
determining dynamic of lack of logistics. He answered rather
pessimistically:
The individual prison officer in the prison yard cannot do anything. No, the
prison officer cannot do anything to change the situation. There’s nothing
he can do to change the situation.
There are a few occasions when complaints can be put to senior officials,
during visits for example of the zonal co-ordinator, the state controller or the
CGP himself but in such instances what is usually revealed is the limits of
the power of even the people with authority:
Sometimes when the zonal co-ordinator or when the controller comes
visiting the prison we complain, “We want this, we want that, we want to
do this, we want to do that, we need this, we need that. The CGP, the zonal
co-ordinator, the controller of prisons, say “I know all these things” but
sometimes he shows his handicap: “Actually I want to give you these
things too but actually it’s not forthcoming from the government.”
When asked about what changes staff would make were they in the position
of the CGP the almost universal response was that they would improve staff
welfare. Torhile echoed this response:
First and foremost all staff would want their welfare improved, honestly.
And further: Basically that is what every staff would want, first and foremost. Then you
can request them to do other things. Sometimes we find it is very difficult
to cause the staff to do some certain things, while you know they are not
getting the money, they are not being paid their salaries. Sometimes staff
come to work in tattered uniforms and then you want to say “Ha, you must
come in a good uniform, sew your uniform” and all that, but if you have
been the superior and yourself have not been paid, you know how epileptic
the salary thing is. So first and foremost if there’s going to be change I
think they should start from the staff welfare, at least have a kind of morale
booster…
For prison officers there is a clear link between improving staff welfare and
the possibility of improving prisoner welfare. All manner of staff say this,
be they trainees, officers working in the schools or officers from the prison
yard. As Torhile puts it above, if staff are well cared for then one can
request they do things beyond the call of duty. Torhile even seems to
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acknowledge that the poor welfare of staff makes it difficult even to ask
them to do some things that ought to be well within the call of duty such as
making sure they are well attired. External agencies meet resistance to
recommendations for improving prisoners’ welfare and granting prisoners’
rights when the rights of prison staff seem to be limited. Improvements in
prisoners’ conditions are unlikely at least to occur without the active
understanding and participation of staff.
Thomas (1978) writing not about West African prisons but about UK
prisons, decries the neglect of staff perspectives by policy makers and
administrators. He also points out that resentment can build up amongst
staff when it appears that resources are allocated to prisoners but not to
staff. Reform organisations have typically not been in constructive alliances
with prison officers. Thomas cites the UK based Prison Officer’s Magazine
as stating that the Howard League for Penal Reform
…has committed the almost unpardonable error of liberating the prisoner
and chaining up the officer. (Thomas 1978: 60)
Staff perception of conditions for prisoners in Nigeria is affected by the
conditions in which staff themselves live. I discussed this issue with Torhile,
trying to get an impression of how staff themselves perceive prison
conditions given the critical type of remarks made by outsiders:
Prison staff generally look at prison conditions from their own individual
perspective. Like I mentioned, some look at it as being generally poor, the
condition of prison as poor, as punitive, and some see it as “Well in my
own house, there is nothing different from where I live to what is
obtainable here”. Some say, they say the prisoners are even better off
because the prisoners have three square meals, or three meals, not square
anyway, three meals in a day whereas some families are having 1-0-0, or 0-
0-1 or one meal in a day. So some see the prisoners as even better off, they
say “Well, you are eating”. I have heard some staff shouting at prisoners,
“You have eaten three meals a day you have taken your lunch, I have not
eaten, I have not”, kind of comparing themselves with the prisoners and
then some see the structures, the buildings, that where they live themselves
sometimes the hostels for the prisoners are not that different from where
they live themselves. So staff see prison conditions differently. Some of the
staff see them differently from their own perspective. Some say they are
good, some say they are bad and some don’t even care, or say, “Whatever,
they have committed an offence so they must face that there are
consequences”.
Staff perspectives vary but the general starting point for evaluating the
conditions of prisoners is the conditions under which they live themselves.
It is a kind of less eligibility doctrine not necessarily rooted in punitiveness,
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but in an understandable logic that suggests that prisoners should not live
better than prison staff. Torhile emphasises the significance of food.
Another remark he made to me about the necessity of tightening the
family’s belts by missing some meals in order to finance the rebuilding of
his mothers house in the village indicates the realness of this situation.
Prison officers do sometimes go without meals. There are clear material
connections or disjunctures for officers between their own everyday social
conditions, the social conditions for prisoners and the quite different social
conditions which interveners and policy makers take for granted and which
feed in to the standards developed. This does not excuse the state from
providing prisoners with food but it does contribute to explain why prison
officers might be less than enthusiastic about implementing
recommendations from outside agencies that are based on comparative
analyses, rooted not in local conditions on the ground but on an assumed
universal foundation. It is also correct that prison staff quarters in some
instances even for senior staff are comparable to prisoners’ cells, though
less crowded. Torhile emphasises the variety of perspectives there can be on
conditions for prisoners – some see them as good, some as bad, some
looking from the perspective of their own situation and others utilising the
logic that having committed an offence they must face the consequences, a
more classic articulation of the less eligibility doctrine. This variety is worth
remembering given the likelihood that an outside agency’s report is likely to
present a unified, apparently authoritative account.
I turn now to consider some aspects of the structural arrangements of
Nigerian prison practices, more specifically the paramilitary structures.
Paramilitary structures
When thinking of change in relation to social practice it is helpful to
remember that change implies both subjective and structural aspects. It is
not only conditions that frame the scope of possibilities for change. Nor is it
only subjects with their particular pre-history and trajectory. An analytic
focus on person-in-practice points us towards the way in which change
might usefully be understood as an aspect of both persons and practice
simultaneously. Persons’ ways of living through change and pursuing
change in practice make a more useful starting point than what they say
about change.
During chapter six I emphasised not only the importance of discipline but
the value prison staff attributed to the paramilitary structure of the prisons
service. What role does such a structural arrangement have in relation to the
scope of possibilities for change? Do hierarchical structures and pre-ordered
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forms of social relations create an environment that is inimical to
transformation, that contributes to an inherent conservatism? Are
paramilitary structures a barrier to transformation?
In South Africa in 1995 in the wake of the fall of apartheid the South
African prison service was demilitarised as part of a reform process (Centre
for Conflict Resolution 2002). Arguably stripping officers of their rank and
changing their uniforms does not alter their everyday practices and ways of
thinking, though it clearly has a symbolic value. A senior officer and I
discussed the issue of demilitarisation in relation to NPS. He clearly did not
believe that demilitarisation was a potential way forward. He grounded his
argument in a special Nigerian mentality:
We have, Nigeria has a mentality. They love the uniform and normally
obey people in uniform. You understand - that is the Nigerian mentality
and that is why the military has ruled us for a long time… I think that
things go better when you are in uniform. People tend to take instruction
more readily from you…
He describes how the uniform and the paramilitary status enhances the job
and makes the job easier. Our discussion was also about ways of bringing
about change. He is confident of reform and turns the question back on me:
Reform is coming. Reform is coming. Do you think we cannot get reform
if we are wearing uniform?
I respond non-commitally:
I don’t know.
He expresses more confidence:
I think we can get there. We are the right calibre of people.
For this officer it is not necessary to abandon the uniform or the paramilitary
structure in order to bring about penal reform. Penal reform will come
because of the calibre of personnel. Here is a personalised, individualised
way of thinking about change that is also utopian. This utopian way of
thinking is mirrored by officers attending a course designed to prepare them
for a new task, namely that of aftercare.
The utopian optimism of prison officers
Aftercare concerns the supervision of persons released from custody, in
order to facilitate their return to a law-abiding life in their communities. I
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attended a week-long course for officers newly assigned to take up this task
and at the end of the course I conducted a crude survey (see appendix seven)
of participants’ hopes and fears about their new assignments that I then
collated in a report to the course trainers and aftercare organisers 86 . The
following two paragraphs are extracts from that report:
Respondents used expressions such as the following to indicate their
personal aims: to work well, to work hard and show dedication, to do my
best, to live up to expectations, to strive hard, to take the opportunity, to
discharge my duties well and derive satisfaction, to be a role model for
colleagues, to be determined, show zeal and full commitment to carry out
duty.
The strategic aims indicated by respondents represent a reflection of the
aims of the service and include rehabilitation, reform, and reintegration of
offenders, the achievement of the objective of imprisonment, the portrayal
of NPS in a good light, improved staff morale, the reduction of
recidivism/criminal acts, the acceptance of offenders by custodial staff, the
promotion of the new approach inside and outside the prison, the desire for
understanding and assistance from colleagues and society, and to
demonstrate that crime control is a joint responsibility.
The following two remarks by prison staff participating in the course are
expressions of the utopianism of officers in the face of the new task. They
juxtapose rather oddly with actual prison practices and the constraints that
aftercare is burdened by, that are expressed in their fears.
This course is really an eye-opener. Even in my dream last night I saw
myself treating every inmate as a unique person with rights and privileges
to be pursued by me. I shall leave no stone unturned in trying to actualise
this noble course.
I hope to practicalise all principles and dynamics of aftercare service so
that the aim of imprisonment will be achieved i.e. to reform, rehabilitate
and reintegrate to live a supportive and law abiding life.
In response to my survey participants praise the course – the survey form
did not allow them to criticise it - and declare their intention to do all in
their power to make it a success. I do not doubt their sincerity. Neither do I
doubt the sincerity and good intentions of course facilitators. Their
discourse is persuasive and compelling. The need for change in the prison
service, the need for effective supervision of prisoners on discharge, the
need to educate society and improve the image of NPS are all clear.
86 Forty-two officers attended the course and each of them completed the survey.
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Making notes from the sidelines during after-care course flanked
by course facilitators and course co-ordinator, prison staff college.
Respondents described themselves as motivated, determined, encouraged,
prepared, enriched, informed, confident. They described the course as
opening their eyes, awakening them, opening them up, exposing them to
new knowledge, building capacity, arming them with information, enabling
them to relate to others, equipping them, and empowering them. In terms of
practicalising some spoke of being resourceful, of reaching out to inmates,
colleagues and communities, of negotiating to get things done properly, of
appointing liaison staff, of involving others. In summary, they made
statements of intention. They did not for the most part indicate much in the
way of how they had been equipped that is about how the knowledge they
had acquired related to the everyday practice they imagine they will be
carrying out. There is a practical and theoretical gap between information,
intention, and practice. Courses and training generally can be criticised for
teaching people a way to talk about issues, that is giving them a new
discourse, a new awareness but without equipping them with the necessary
skills required to carry out the job. Participants on this course too assume a
link between being able to talk about and being able to do.
Participants’ declarations of intentions and determination to do their best
need to be understood within the context of their fears. A fundamental
source of fear is colleagues be they superior officers, officers in charge,
industry staff, welfare staff. Fears focus around the presumed resistance of
these groups to change, the fact that the work of aftercare depends on the
co-operation of other staff, as well as the possibility that some staff might
try to capitalise on materials available and implicate aftercare staff in
malpractice. The mentality of some staff was presented as a challenge, and
aftercare was presented as a new way of thinking which will face resistance.
Funding and logistics (materials and transport) are a cause for concern
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amongst many respondents, whether these funds/materials come from
government or NGO’s.
The issue of continuity was raised – will the government allow for the
continuity of programmes sustaining them into the future? This is a fear
with a historical legacy, given the fact that aftercare has existed previously
but never really took off. Others express fears which relate to society’s ways
of viewing criminals – will local communities accept criminals back? There
is a fear of lack of understanding. Other respondents expressed fears about
being able to gain the trust of the prisoners they are to work with - are they
motivated to change? Less prevalent, though also articulated are fears about
big work loads, the calibre of staff, and the personal risks involved. Two
respondents expressed no fears. Many expressed multiple fears.
This presentation of hopes and fear in the context of an educational training
workshop raises the issue of education as a route to transformation. In
chapter six I largely neglected the place of the classroom in the basic
training of recruits, choosing to emphasise the practices of discipline that
trainees emphasised. Here I wish to revive a discussion of classroom
education as a potential route to change.
Education as a route to change?
My fear is that we are producing (an) educated but ignorant generation in
the country. (Sunday Vanguard, 24 th November 2002: 17)
The classroom
Prison staff training is dominated by discipline. But what is the status of the
classroom and the academic disciplines of psychology, criminology and law
that are taught? Why are they on the syllabus? Why is there a syllabus? In
chapter six I suggested that classroom teaching is a form of tutelary
discipline in the context of Nigerian prisons. Perhaps one could see the
presence of these academic subjects on the syllabus as a thread in an
attempted reform process reflecting a desire to entice more qualified staff
into the prison service. That is, perhaps one can view classroom practices as
a kind of subversive discourse to historical prison practice, as an attempt to
actually move away from purely military models of preparation for work.
Perhaps the classroom activities are education for the sake of education,
based on a belief that education makes better people?
Whether this is the case or not the fact is that prisons and prison work
remain largely unchanged. It is possible that better educated staff will be
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able to initiate transformation of the prison service. Yet, in the absence of
other material and structural transformations I have my doubts. Knowing
more about prisons and prisoners, be it in criminological, sociological or
psychological terms does not affect the number of awaiting trial prisoners,
or the dilapidated conditions of the prisons or the lack of salaries supplied
on time to staff. Knowledge alone cannot trump ongoing practices.
Former Nigerian Ambassador, Isaac Sagay, presents a contrary view of
development: Our concept of development is really archaic. We think of development
only in terms of physical development, infrastructure, roads, transportation
system and the like. But the development of the human mind has never
recommended itself to us. When we talk of development the real essence of
development should be the development of the human person and until the
Nigerian man is transformed and he develops into a different specie of
human being, the material and physical development will come to no avail.
(Sagay 2002)
This view about development and Nigerians’ ways of seeing development is
strangely contradictory to the views I heard expressed by prison officers and
intervening agencies where it was precisely human minds that were targets
of change. This view is also contradictory to the view of person in practice I
am advocating where the material is not to be understood as separate from
personhood but as implicated and lived as if implicated in practice. What
does it mean to speak of the development and transformation of the
Nigerian mind in isolation from the material context? What is the
significance of desituating people, of making them into free-floating minds?
What hope for transformation does this give? What is absent in this critique
of development thinking is an understanding that structure and subjectivity
are generated in practice, that the material and the personal are constituted
together.
In the first half of this chapter I have considered some of the ways prison
officers talk about change. In the second half I examine and continue
problematising the ways in which actors external to the prison conceive of
and attempt to bring about change.
Minor ripples or tidal waves?
An external training intervention conducted by PRAWA focused on making
“the prison officer an agent of change”. I asked Torhile about the effects of
this training: On the school it has had a very great impact because we begin to shift
grounds now from just that aspect of discipline, discipline, discipline,
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physical, physical, physical, just all the time physical training, unarmed
combat, parade drill, body conditioning and so to more to getting the prison
officers to actually understand why the prison officer should try to assist
and help the prisoner, to intervene in the prisoner’s condition, to make him
a better person at least when he gets out of the prison or on discharge he
should not be worse off than when he came into the prison. (my italics)
Torhile’s comment demonstrates the paradox of his own position where he
is caught between what is and what could be. The NGO intervention is
described as having a very great impact On the other hand this impact is
described as a beginning, a start. A shift is on its way from discipline,
discipline, discipline, to the actually quite modest goal of getting the prison
officers to actually understand why the prison officer should try to assist
and help the prisoner. This is a goal that is clearly formulated based on
practice. It reflects current practice. It is a clear indication that prison staff
actually do not have a rationale for helping prisoners despite the training
ideology of reform and rehabilitation.
There is a contradiction between the comment that great changes have come
and the small steps that are described as having taken place to make prison
staff more helpful in relation to prisoners. If prison officers are to be agents
of change it is necessary that they first understand why they ought to help
the prisoners. The training manual had much greater ambitions than
Torhile’s level, practice-based formulation. Perhaps it is the discourse of the
manual and the NGO he reflects when he claims a great impact has been
made and his own experience of this that is emphasised when he
subsequently tones down his account in his actual descriptions of the
changes that have taken place in the school.
Another way of looking at this is to say that the modest shifts Torhile
describes are indeed signs of a great impact. Given the intransigence of
structures and dominant practices of discipline, ordering and othering, the
fact that a shift has begun is the sign of a great impact. This is a relativising
of the term impact. What might appear to an outsider as a mere minor ripple
could to an insider appear as a tidal wave. In the light of this outsiders
should be careful when measuring impact. Again the question is impact in
relation to what, change in relation to what? A point here is that
understandings of change and possibilities for change reflect different
subject positions, even changing subject positions.
Problematising the bases for interventions
Interventions are aimed to bring about change, to make a difference. In this
section I problematise the bases for interventions showing how this has
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implications for change or the absence of change, firstly in relation to
practice and then in relation to human rights.
The absence of practice and persons
Without an understanding of practice - of how practice is and why it is as it
is - it is difficult to evaluate changing practices or design interventions or
create conditions in which prison staff members can change their ways of
participating in ongoing practices.
Training programmes seem to be universally accepted interventions for
bringing about Western-sponsored change in non-Western countries. There
are cultural reasons why training is accepted as an obvious intervention of
choice even in the absence of an understanding of practice or of the complex
ways in which persons participate in and makes sense of practice. In the
West we have grown up with an educational system that is built on and
reproduces an understanding of itself as appropriate (Dreier 2001) and it
seems like it has worked. The West poses developing countries as a problem
in terms of lack of good governance, lack of human rights, lack of freedom
of the press and rule of law etc, and proposes classic liberal solutions to
these problems - scholastic education in rules for governing conduct. This
makes it difficult for us to formulate critique about training and education as
ways of promoting learning and change. It is as if they give themselves. I
asked a group of female trainees I interviewed about what it was about
education that made such a big difference. They responded that there would
…be no dragging back if all were learned… Training is good…
I was left with the question, yeh, but for what exactly? Training and
education have become self-legitimating. To understand why training has
become an unquestioned answer to social, developmental and political
problems in Nigeria demands a historical analysis that would point to the
role of education and literacy in the practices of the early missionaries and
colonists and to the general assumption that schooling is the royal road to
progress and development. 87 This is not the place for that analysis, suffice to
say that the belief in education as THE answer contributes to making it
difficult to question the legitimacy of training as an intervention. It is taken
for granted. Nevertheless, given that training interventions often do only
87 Barnes, for example, has remarked that “Education as utilised by NGO’s could
interestingly be compared to the intention of the colonial schools system designed to
construct a particular future society and bring about particular social and cultural
transformations.” (Barnes 1997)
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produce limited dividends in terms of sustainable change, improved
conditions or social justice then questions ought to be asked about the
appropriateness of training as the intervention of choice. 88
In chapter five Torhile was presented as a person-in-practice in relation to a
variety of networks – his family, his friends from the staff club, the
Immaculate Friends, the legion of Mary, the Catholic church. Networks are
generally seen as conservative but it is also possible to ask about whether
any of Torhile's networks actually promote change. His religious faith and
the associated networks - all have the potential to be both conserving and
transformative. Thinking in terms of networks allows for a critique of the
individual targeting nature of human rights training, which fails to account
for the potential of networks for inducing change presuming rather that an
individualised knowledge of conventions and best practice equips the
individual to go out and transform institutionalised practices.
Institutions like those that make up the Nigerian Prisons Service operate in
changing circumstances and unavoidably react to these wider changes.
Prisons are notoriously characterised as static, stubborn, resistant
institutions yet I contend that their political nature makes them inherently
open to change. Ruggiero, Ryan and Sim’s (1995) edited volume is unusual
in addressing the variation of “cultures of punishment” across eight western
European countries aware that each culture of punishment is constantly
undergoing processes of modification caught up as they are in complex,
ongoing relations between “crime, punishment, social change and the
maintenance of order” (Ruggiero, Ryan and Sim 1995: 1). Nigeria is the
focus of this study precisely because it is undergoing a period of transition
and one of the aims of this study is to turn attention to the fact that changing
socio-political structures interact with changing penal practices. Such
changing political developments tend to be out of reach of typical
interventions. Interventions often assume a static world and a static field to
intervene in, with the result that any changes that might come about after
88 On occasions the fact that training is given is taken as evidence for the quality of one’s
own ongoing practice. A rather curious example of this is presented by Thomas (1978: 57)
who describes the changes during the first half of the 20 th century as combining “to make
the English Prison system… an exemplar of prison reform”. He continues “Vestiges of this
are plentiful. For example, each year, despite the dismantling of the British Empire, groups
of senior staff from the Commonwealth attend long courses at The Prison Service College,
Wakefield, a practice begun in the 1930’s”. Here there seems to be an implicit rather
dubious assumption that if we are training others it must be because we are really good
ourselves. The carrying out of training thus legitimates not only itself but also other distant
practices. (See next chapter for an examination of the global dynamics entailed with North -
South interventions).
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training are posited as having been caused solely by the intervention as if it
and the target of intervention existed in a vacuum. The fact is both targets of
intervention and the world in general are always already changing simply by
virtue of the passage of time.
A premise of my argument is that we should not conduct training for
training’s sake. I have argued that before we can begin to think interventions
we need to know something about the fields and institutions we want to
change. I advocate the need for understandings of deep context and personsin-practice.
My demonstration that prison practice has more to do with local cultures
and arrangements of practice than it does with written dictates governing
practice suggests that introducing a new set of governing principles and
rules is unlikely to make much difference. This is a specific example of how
agendas for change are contextualised via a view of prison practice.
Epistemological inconsistencies
In the above discussion where I argue for the need for a greater knowledge
of persons-in-practice, it might sound as though I resort to epistemological
arguments, despite my argument in chapter three in favour of a historical
ontology of practice. What I point to however is the inconsistencies of
interventionist practice. Training interventions operate within a framework
dominated by epistemological concerns. They aim to give knowledge, to
train, to teach, to educate via processes of transmission and transfer. Their
manuals and their practices betray an epistemological bias that is not
matched by an epistemological basis, that is a knowledge of actual practice.
This absence seems to undercut the interventionist practice. Within their
own terms what is the basis for introducing new knowledge to practice in
the absence of knowledge of practice? How can goals be achieved via
epistemological channels when an epistemological base is missing? My
intention is not to advocate more knowledge as a corrective for interventions
but to point to the internal inconsistency. Trying to bring about change via
training in the absence of foreknowledge of the object implies a view of the
object as an empty container. That is there is nothing worth knowing in
advance, nothing, that is, beyond symptom or problem. Training is based on
an initial relation of unknownness (alienation?) between instructors and
trainees. Trainees are not theorised as persons in practice, acting out their
own histories and their knowledge in unique ways, but as standard
recipients.
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Human rights abuses: an incomplete diagnosis
Western agencies, governments and institutions do not instigate or support
projects intervening in the criminal justice systems of developing countries
merely on a whim. Funding is granted based on project proposals and
documentation. Documentation often takes the form of reports compiled by
international or local NGO’s and human rights organisations as well as
internationally accredited inspection teams. External national and
international agencies (some with legal, some with moral credentials) are
engaged in monitoring and documenting the state of prisons in developing
countries. And it is on the basis of such documentation that interventions are
designed. It should be emphasised that the reports produced are broadly
speaking documentary and descriptive rather than analytical and
explanative. That is they focus on symptoms rather than causes or clues.
Understandings of causes, be they historical or contextual, are largely
absent. In my opinion this makes such reports, in spite of their importance
as documentations of injustices, rather poor blueprints for intervention
strategies.
Human rights reports and inspections of prisons have tended to reproduce a
litany of failures. Whilst small improvements may be noticed, in terms of
increased political openness there is sense that nothing much appears to
change in terms of everyday prison practice. The question is should we
expect more? Human rights training is utilised as a kind of standard solution
to problems such as those described in human rights reports. Training is
proposed, in the absence of alternatives, because it seems a natural
intervention, a natural remedy. Human rights violations become translated
from being practices of violence to violations of codes (and quite particular
codes at that). It is not because institutional and structural frameworks have
created conditions conducive to violence but because staff do not know any
better. They are viewed and conceptualised as ignorant about the
conventions designed to govern conduct. External observers or inspectors
rarely get sufficiently close to the everyday realities of prison practice to
recommend the most appropriate intervention strategies. Strategies ought to
be long term and take account of actual local conditions.
When we hear about human rights abuses I contend we often think about
violence (perhaps there is something fetishistic or exotic about it). And
prisons are renowned for violence. They are examples of institutional
violence inflicted by the state and they often warehouse persons convicted
of violent offences and create a cauldron of anxieties and tensions that foster
violence, both inmate–inmate, inmate–staff and staff-inmate. I argue that we
need to take practices in their entirety rather than isolated symptoms (or
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myths about symptoms) as targets for intervention. Warder brutality and
overcrowding for example go hand in hand. Overcrowding, the problem of
awaiting trial prisoners and mundane violence are complex aspects of
ongoing social practice that are best analysed and addressed together. 89
One reason for the division in our thinking between warder brutality and
overcrowding is our very susceptibility to respond differently to these two
practices. Violence, for example, is rather easier to condemn and distance
oneself from than overcrowding. There is a viscerality to a position taken
condemning warder brutality. And there is somebody, an individual, to
blame. One does not have to justify condemning violence. Overcrowding,
on the other hand, is rather less visceral, has rather less immediate impact on
one. Training in human rights can be portrayed in terms of a “semiotics of
accusation” (Motzkau forthcoming). Implicitly it blames individuals, rather
than focussing on other contributory factors. The intervention focuses on
individual behaviours and attitudes and yet it addresses them in a vacuum,
whilst staff themselves are fully aware that their behaviour and actions are
part of everyday practices that are circumscribed by structures and
arrangements of structures partially beyond their control.
My argument is that externally sponsored training interventions fail to take
local conditions and dynamics seriously. Thus they come to speak “beyond
the local.” From my perspective there is a danger that speaking beyond the
local involves speaking past the local. My concern is that the universal call
muffles the demands of local practice. It is difficult to know with certainty,
yet, reading the various publications (for example, those introduced in
chapter nine) gives me, with my grounding in local first person perspectives
and observations of practice on the ground, a sense of reading a foreign
language. I understand the words but not the meaning. It speaks of and into
the same world but it speaks differently. It has an alternative frame of
reference, an external one. The propagation of international norms of penal
practice, that Piacentini (2003) describes have from my perspective a
dangerous potential to stifle local initiatives. What I examined in my
ethnography of the training intervention (chapter nine) is the difficulties this
different speech faces as it is translated back into local practice. And I have
shown it is not just the definition of the problem and the proposed solution
which are foreign. The method of introducing the solution – that is training,
89 There is a paradoxality to condemning violence and overcrowding in institutions
designed to punish and to do so by secluding men together and separating them from
society. One could ask, since when has overcrowding not been symptomatic of prisons in
general? Perhaps a more radical, abolitionist critique of penal institutions is required?
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manuals, training-of-trainers – is also alien and different. The given,
universalising “speaking beyond” would seem to bring with it a particular
method, that disallows potential alternative methods, methods that might be
more appropriate and make a more appropriate difference.
It is not only local NGO’s informed by international norms that have a
tendency to ignore persons in practice. Practice is arguably just as invisible
to Western development NGO’s. I give an example below.
Western NGO's understandings of change
The invisibility of practice and deniability of core assumptions
Practice may also be absent from Western NGO’s dominant understandings
of change. Some issues related to this arose when I attended a meeting of a
Danish NGO forum with a focus on organisational development. The theme
for the meeting was the "facilitation of organisational development in
practice and the underlying understandings of organisations". It captured my
attention both because of its emphasis on practice and its emphasis on
underlying assumptions or understandings. Paradoxically the hidden
assumptions, at least in relation to facilitating change, remained hidden
throughout the facilitator's presentation and subsequent discussion.
It is instructive to examine the way change was framed in terms not of
practice despite the facilitator's claims that her observations were based on
what she saw working in practice. She highlighted three preconditions for
change - shared knowledge and experience, a shared forum for reflection
and a will to choose to be in community. Here we have knowledge and
experience, reflection and choice as key determining factors. What is clear
is that the assumptions hidden in these preconditions match very nicely onto
neo-liberal rational choice models as well as onto models of learning that
involve transfer and transmission. Practice is only considered as something
one should reflect on, in contrast to something one does or engages in. The
impetus for changing practice is seen as coming from outside practice, at a
distance, via reflection.
It seems often to be the case that attempts to transform practice become
translated in practice either into attempts to transform institutions via
targeting individuals (most often) or attempts to transform individuals by
targeting institutions (Engeström 1993). At issue here is the relationship
between persons and institutions. From my perspective a problem is created
when persons are conceptualised as separate from institutions and practices.
It is more useful to see institutions as structures of practice, and persons as
persons in practice and in relations of practice. This would result in a model
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of change that weirdly would say that to transform practice(s) we must
transform practice(s).
More often than not practice is hidden and underlying assumptions are
denied a place. In a commissioned article I wrote criticising the assumptions
underlying training interventions 90 I met fierce resistance from the guest
editorial board of a Danish development journal who chose not to respond
to my submission in its own terms. It was clear that the underlying
assumptions that I criticised in that article were invisible to the critics of the
article. My critics appeared caught up in the paradigm I was critiquing. Of
course as writer I could perhaps have been more explicit and more concrete.
In this instance, I maintain I was explicit about the issues of concern to me,
and not surprisingly less concrete about issues that my approach prohibits
me from saying much about. The questions, for example, "what did prison
officers learn at school?", or "how did they use what they learned?" are
questions that become problematic given my practice framework and my
developing understanding of learning as participation in ongoing practice.
That such a radical questioning of underlying assumptions was not seen as
legitimate by the editorial board was indicated by my interlocutor’s
dismissal of my argument by saying that we could end up questioning the
idea of intervening at all. Exactly, we could! From my point of view, rather
not intervene, than intervene on false premises and with little likelihood of
bringing about the changes one intends. Or rather, it is better to be aware of
the weaknesses of one’s approach and the implicit assumptions about
knowledge, learning and change that underlie it such that one can rethink
alternative interventions, especially when one is attempting to bring about
change in cultures different to one’s own.
Returning to practice: Howard’s historical reform legacy
John Howard has long stood as a figurehead for the prison reform
movement not only in the UK but worldwide. Howard’s legacy remains
noteworthy and in a collection of articles (Freeman 1978) marking 200
years since his indictment of prison conditions in the 18 th century (Howard
1777) there are some useful issues raised. From these accounts some of
90 The paper presented at the workshop that resulted in the commissioning of the article was
inspired by the workshop’s aim: to discuss how “capacity development” is linked to
“notions of power, politics, exploitation, and the political economy of development in the
South” (The Association of Development Researchers (FAU) conference 2003 flyer). The
description of the topic for the workshop mentioned the absence of critical perspectives on
capacity development. My intention was to reflect critically on a particular form of capacity
development that is human rights training.
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which detail Howard’s life and his work one learns that Howard was no
penal philosopher, but rather a humanitarian motivated by his own
painstaking observations of prison conditions and the suffering they
engendered.
According to Radzinowicz (in Freeman 1978), Howard’s work began when
a single specific injustice came to his attention at Bedford Gaol. Howard
was freshly appointed high sheriff for the county and was shocked to
discover that men acquitted and released after spending time on remand
were returned to prison where money was extorted from them to pay the
gaoler, who apparently received no salary. Howard’s simple solution to this
was to propose that gaolers receive a salary. Though this solution met
resistance amongst the authorities it is a good example of a comprehensive
approach to intervention, based on an understanding of context and taking
the situation of the gaoler seriously, a kind of liberative pragmatic approach
such as that I advocate in these pages.
Summary - designing alternative interventions /
revealing gaps
The examples of institutionalised routine, mundane violence presented in
chapter six create a challenge to outsiders wishing to make a difference.
How does one tackle and attempt to change such taken-for-granted
practices? Is it plausible that being told about a convention that forbids
torture and a set of rules governing minimum practice is likely to make any
impression on such routines? This is an extremely difficult issue to tackle
since the violence is to a degree invisible to the perpetrators and because it
is so natural. “How should we otherwise treat prisoners?” it will be asked. It
is exactly this question that intervention designers must address at the same
time as they seek comprehensive understandings of practice. The most
important thing is not to teach trainees about conventions (even though
these do have important functions) but to give them alternative action
possibilities. This demands that the focus of externally sponsored courses
shifts from knowledge to action and from individuals to persons in practice.
In the first instance though it is necessary to make visible, that is to reveal
the gap between abstract notions of change and denied assumptions
underlying practice, and the actual engagement in practice of participating
actors. In this chapter I have further problematised the bases of interventions
and suggested that practitioners should start not with the offence (human
rights violations and poor conditions) but with persons in practice, that is to
say persons (prison staff) participating across and through a multitude of
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action contexts. It is necessary to recognise that persons (and structures)
implicated in violations and poor conditions are much more than isolated,
autonomous “minds on sticks”, (an expression used by Jean Lave during a
series of lectures at Copenhagen University in 2000). Persons conduct their
lives; they are involved in different and varying projects. Prison staffs’ jobs
and training are just one aspect of their trajectories of participation. Cursory
inspection visits which document human rights violations and result in
condemnations of conditions thus providing the rationale for providing
some kind of training in human rights, do not offer a reliable basis for
designing effective intervention strategies. They tell us nothing for example
about the wider and deeper context or about other stakeholders and the
conditions they live under.
If we are to understand possibilities for change in such complex social,
political and historical institutions, it is necessary to ponder some of the
following questions, questions I have tried to address throughout this
dissertation: How do prison staff conduct themselves in their everyday
working lives? What are the conditions that frame their participation in
diverse practices? What demands are put on them? How do they constitute
themselves in practice and their practice in themselves? How do they
exemplify and personify the institutions that they constitute?
One thing that this project demands is that those wishing to design
interventions aimed at bringing about reform in the Nigerian context must
take discipline, the logic of penality and the ideology of corrections into
account. Teaching, in and of itself, will not be enough to undermine, the
organisational, structural and practice-based injustices that burden the
prisoner and make the job of the prison staff member that much more
difficult.
In the following chapter, I situate the externally sponsored NGO
intervention within a global dynamic of relations between North and South
suggesting that to understand such interventions and the possibilities and
limits for change they present it is necessary to recognise them as caught up
within and contributing to global relations of power. I situate the
intervention as part of attempts to rehabilitate “deviant states”.
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Human rights training as part of
a global(ising) discourse
The role of knowledge and research is to expose the different levels,
interconnections and motivations that shape this system. In showing the
linkages and how the whole fits together, research becomes a moral force
and not just a means to technical solutions. All too easily, the hunt for
prescriptions and policy options can uncritically deepen and extend the
power of liberal governance, a system that is very often part of the problem
that is being addressed. (Duffield 2001: 260)
In the previous two chapters I have presented and problematised a human
rights training intervention with particular focus on its underlying
assumptions concerning personhood, learning and knowledge and the way
they are played out in practice. In addition ideas about change have been
explored with reference to the common absence of practice and situated
persons in the understandings of change of prison staff, the local NGO and
Western NGO’s.
The intervention described in chapter nine is underlain by abstract (practicedenying)
theories of learning and knowledge that also underpin the selfunderstandings
of liberal democracies (Lave 2004a). This chapter situates
human rights training given its status as an externally sponsored
intervention, within a nexus of North-South relations illustrating the
complex ways in which such interventions do not stand alone but are part of
much wider dynamics of power. The point of departure is the way training
is positioned between two poles - on the one hand the local working
practices of staff in prisons; on the other hand the enduring struggles of
development discourse out of which human rights training as a particular
intervention has emerged.
A focus on persons in practice has the potential to dissolve the dichotomy
between micro and macro when both levels are understood as implying each
other. Persons-in-practice does not designate what level of practice persons
are engaged in because local struggles are global and global struggles are
local, when they are seen as lived struggles, that is as habituated by persons
in practice. Struggles are never abstract; they are always populated by
persons in practice. We need not conceive of the local as simply framed by
the global but as potentially transforming it. Holland and Lave’s text is
exemplary in examining local/global struggles as they are undergoing
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change acknowledging “the reciprocal character of this relation between
local practices of struggle and global, structuring struggles” (Holland and
Lave 2001: 22). This chapter is an attempt to examine the reciprocal
relations of global practices of development and local human rights training
interventions.
The chapter addresses the way prison reform practices are embedded in a
global(ising) development discourse. This is a shift not from persons to
politics but to persons in politics, which is a thread in the development of a
psychological approach to the study of persons in practice that is expansive
and transdisciplinary (cf. chapter one). This chapter is expansive in another
way: it looks beyond the traditional scope of psychology seeking to locate
persons and interventions in global relations. The chapter functions then as
an opening, looking beyond the local and specific towards the dynamics of
human rights training interventions as they play into a broader context.
Looking beyond – crossing boundaries
Three analogies are utilised creating three critical perspectives that
compliment my desire to problematise and operate with a hermeneutics of
suspicion. Firstly an analogy is drawn between human rights training and
development discourse where Mark Duffield’s critical analysis of
development discourse is taken as a model for understanding the role human
rights training has in sustaining unequal global relations. Secondly an
analogy is made with Jeffrey Reiman’s analysis of the “successful failure”
of the U.S. criminal justice system. Both analogies point to the necessity of
asking critical questions. The third analogy utilised is between human rights
training as a development strategy and the way in which children’s
development is theorised by traditional developmental psychologists.
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Locating human rights training within development
discourse
The argument I make about human rights training as it exemplifies
development discourse, builds on my ethnographic material and yet my
attention was directed to certain aspects of my material by particular
presuppositions I had entering the field. For example, that interventions
serve particular interests, that they are not neutral, or the product of some
altruistic Western heart, and that the development of particular forms of
intervention is tied to historical and social processes.
During a conference presentation 91 in 2002 I referred to prison reform in
developing countries as a global(ising) agenda. In what ways can
interventions aimed at reforming prison services and the criminal justice
sector in developing countries be called global(ising)? Training in human
rights is part of an attempt to bring about penal reform which in turn is part
of an attempt to introduce democracy and good governance, and promote
human rights at the societal level. Prison reform is but one aspect of an
emerging development discourse that is part of an emerging system of
global governance where interventions are not about human assistance but
rather designed to contribute to wholesale societal reconstruction (Duffield
2001). Human rights training is about changing institutions, behaviours and
attitudes and often part of a broader project of transforming criminal justice
systems. Occupying a particular position in relation to the state and regimes
of governance, criminal justice systems are rather poignant targets for
intervention with regard to societal reconstruction.
Stability not conquest; exclusion not inclusion
What are the implications of training interventions being part of a package
of societal reconstruction? Duffield (2001) offers an important nuancing of
my own simple argument (Jefferson 2002b) that training interventions divert
attention from unequal distributions of global wealth, demonstrating
imperialist tendencies. Such developmental interventions are not part of a
territory gathering imperial strategy, claims Duffield, in spite of similarities
in the methods used by 19 th century missionaries and 21 st century NGO
campaigners but rather a part of a coalescence of participants working
towards a liberal peace, the primary aim being not conquest, expansion and
inclusion but stability. The relations of power at work are in Duffield’s
phrase “more nuanced, opaque and complex” (2001: 34). I find Duffield’s
analysis compelling especially as it seems to help make sense of and support
91 Conference organised by the UK section of the European Group for the study of deviance
and social control, Easter 2002, Chester.
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my suspicious reading of local practices as described in chapters nine and
ten.
Utilising Duffield’s conceptual lenses, intervention strategies can be seen to
function not to include but to exclude; they are a marking of difference,
serving to maintain the subordinate position developing countries have in
the global order both materially and politically. According to Duffield, new
strategies of global governance aim to keep danger at a distance. Stability is
not dependent on interventions being effective but by the mere fact of their
existence and the matrices and networks that are involved. Development
assistance and investment, have become conditional on the appearance of
progress in such areas as prisons and criminal justice. Development in these
realms, especially when associated with externally sponsored interventions,
becomes evidence of an intended movement in the direction of good
governance, increasing democracy and perhaps above all improved human
rights. Legitimacy is granted by the appearance of progress and the stated
intentions to instigate change. Change itself is not necessary, though at the
same time there is a movement to monitor and document change, evaluate
effects and make sure projects are sustainable.
Piacentini (2003) has described the imposition of international penal norms
on national penal systems in countries undergoing transition, as a process of
integration. Within the broader frame of North–South relations human rights
training for prison staff can be seen as a way for countries to show their
credentials to apply for inclusion. Yet, despite its appearance as an
inclusionary attempt, human rights training can also be seen as an example
of exclusion. Rather than being about integration, interventions function to
mark difference. If one needs an intervention one is other, one does not yet
live up to the “defined standards of behaviour and normative expectations”
(Duffield 2001: 7). At the same time attempts to document effects seem to
be not so much about making sure that interventions work but that they can
survive and be perpetuated. For example, the training of trainers method is
used not because it has been shown to be effective as a transformatory
strategy but because it complies with Western bureaucratic, donor-driven
agendas about measuring, monitoring and evaluating. Quality, in terms of
long-term transformation is not the issue. The issue has become whether it
can be measured that enough people have been exposed to training. The
difference the training makes has become lost in the paper work. The logic
seems to be that training is good because it is training, a logic built on
fundamental assumptions regarding knowledge and learning that dominate
Western liberal democracies, for example that knowledge is a pre-packed
commodity to be transmitted and transferred unchanged from one person to
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another and one context to another, and that learning occurs primarily in
classrooms.
Whilst there has come increasing recognition that prisons are part of
criminal justice systems and should not be intervened on in isolation, global
(economic and political) relations of power remain concealed. Similarly any
sense that there are connections between prison practices and conditions and
the ongoing dynamics between North and South – in this case seen in the
prototypical encounter between Western sponsored intervention forms and
prison staff recipients – are also made invisible. One of the key lenses
through which Duffield analyses development discourse is to show how
Newtonian models of stable, mechanistic machines inform development
policy and discourse, failing remarkably to account for the complex,
systemic, networked nature of the subjects of development discourse and
blinding actors to their own part in the dynamics of development. In the
eyes of the interveners as I have shown, prisons and prison staff are reduced
to machines, in need merely of new instructions or software, namely
manuals in human rights.
Questioning the use of human rights
Despite the versatility of human rights declarations and legislation as a
universal reference point regarding the ways persons deserve to be treated
the use of human rights as an educational instrument can be problematised,
as I have already shown in chapter ten. Duffield points out how human
rights conventions are aimed not primarily at perpetrators but at victims.
They are designed to grant restitution and rights in the case where rights are
denied or violated. They allow victims to have recourse to recompense and
for perpetrators to be punished. The use of conventions as preventive
educational tools is a secondary utilisation. The application of them
“universally” is an example of the treating of “emerging political
complexes” (Duffield 2001) as simple machines that require tinkering with
and bringing up to the required standard. I find this another rather
compelling problematisation, challenging us to think otherwise about the
appropriateness of such interventions. Manuals and best practice guides are
a feature of such normalising attempts at tinkering with the machine. They
are the canonical expressions of the emergence and distribution of
international penal norms (cf. Piacentini’s (2003) important work on the
propagation of international penal norms applied to Russian prisons). The
way such manuals and guides continue to dominate the development
profession despite claims of paying increasing attention to context and
complexity is one way in which the ongoing technicism, mechanism and
apoliticism of interventions is illustrated: "Whilst promising to show "what
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works" or provide check lists of essential things to do, these guides
reproduce the illusion of a replicable and predictable environment"
(Duffield 2001: 263).
Asking illegitimate questions: the legitimacy of criticism
Why does it feel uncomfortable and even illegitimate to problematise
human rights training and introduce global issues of power and inequality to
further complicate matters? Why not just allow intervening agencies to
continue to speak against violence and in favour of the upholding of
international norms, conventions and standards of conduct? What indeed
could be wrong with this? Who could dare to raise such questions?
Issues of power and inequality are even more effectively silenced when
development aid is channelled via partnerships and networks of local actors.
Often local NGO's and activists are more passionate for the cause than their
Western allies and their locally based authority seems even more difficult to
question. They work longer hours, they risk their lives, and their work
becomes on occasions a matter of (their own) life or death. We academics
have a rather more privileged position from which to problematise and
maybe critique. And yet this privilege should not deter us. The very
invisibility of relations of power and inequality reproduced by the North-
South encounters creates a demand to ask the "illegitimate" questions. Socalled
post/modern and feminist writers have, during recent decades, drawn
attention to the silenced voices. It is my contention that the silencing of
discussions of global inequality and politics exacerbates a silence about the
plight of prisoners and the conditions of prisons. Interventions can too easily
represent noise without sound, image without substance. It is imperative,
therefore, to consider the limitations of human rights training as an approach
to bringing about personal, institutional and structural change. At the same
time it is imperative that our understandings of the complex dynamics of
practice that prisons and prison officers in post-transition countries are
caught up in are expanded so that authentic possibilities for transformation
from within can become a reality. In such contexts we also need to refine
and demythologise our understandings of the issues at stake in the
intervener–recipient relation, as I am trying to do here. I turn now to the
second analogy, that is an analogy between human rights training
interventions and the U.S. criminal justice system as critiqued by Reiman.
The rich get richer, the poor get excluded
The aims of this section are to continue the analysis of the ways in which
practices and methods of training at the micro-level reflect and play into
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global, political dynamics in ways which are invisible to the various
stakeholders and vice versa.
My analysis, in its very early stages posed two critical, reflexive questions.
Firstly I wondered why we (I position myself as part of the problem) seem
to utilise strategies of intervention, that demonstrate little by way of effect in
terms of stated aims, that we ought to know will have little effect. Secondly
I wondered why we are so anxious to transport our models of criminal
justice to developing countries, given their lack of success on the domestic
scene. (And here I mean success as adjudged according to stated aims). A
third question, closely related to the first is how do we imagine we can bring
about change in contexts we know nothing about?
As I formulated these questions, I was unaware (to the best of my
knowledge) of Jeffrey Reiman’s book The rich get richer and the poor get
prison, first published in 1979 and revised 6 times since, most recently in
2004. Reiman’s book is an indictment of the American criminal justice
system, demonstrating, with reference to statistical material and research
studies how crime is selectively defined, and criminals selectively
prosecuted and sentenced, all with the effect of protecting the particular
interests of the powerful whilst at the same time creating a dynamic that
perpetuates the system rather than changing it, despite the mass of
contradictions and paradoxes that the system itself presents.
The argument I will pursue here is that human rights violations likewise are
a problem that has been selectively defined, and violators selectively and
arbitrarily targeted, using taken for granted methods of intervention. The
particular interests that are protected by this selectivity are economic and
political. Failure to live up to required standards usually has economic
trade-offs. Not always sanctions or military intervention, but the
withholding or withdrawing of aid and loans based on accusations of not
good enough governance or a poor human rights record. In such cases of
material exchange (or lack of it) the interests at stake and the logic
sustaining failure to develop genuine patterns of just governance and
authentic systems of criminal justice, become more clearly revealed.
One example of the selective defining of violations that is instructive is the
example of Amina Lawal and others condemned to death by stoning
according to the newly operationalised Sharia law in northern Nigeria. This
case has been highly publicised and international pressure has been put on
lawmakers in the northern states. What is striking to me is the individualised
understanding of the world that seems betrayed in the way such single cases
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are pushed into the public domain and come to prominence whilst local
historical and social factors fade into insignificance. Simultaneous with this
drawn out court case, American, British and Danish troops were invading
Iraq and prisoners were still being held in judicial limbo in Guantanamo
Bay. Selective attention to single cases does more than just ignore
complicating factors, it also deflects attention from other matters. In the case
of the Sharia debate it is not surprising that it is Muslim law that is the
target. 92
The impetus for appropriating and running with Reiman’s argument springs
from my ethnographic material, indeed from the micro-level analysis of
intervention practices, as described in chapter nine.
Reiman states:
Entertain the idea that the goal of our criminal justice system is not to
reduce crime or to achieve justice but to project to the American public a
visible image of the threat of crime. To do this, it must maintain the
existence of a sizable population of criminals. To do this, it must fail in the
struggle to reduce crime. Crime may, of course, occasionally decline, as it
has from time to time in recent years – but not because of criminal justice
policies.
You will rightly demand to know how and why a society such as ours
would tolerate a criminal justice system designed to fail in the fight against
crime. (Reiman 1995 (4 th ed): 1)
If we make the analogy between criminal justice systems and development
assistance and run with it we can make his paragraph look like this:
Imagine the idea that the goal of Western development discourse, policy
and practice is not to reduce poverty, or promote development and prison
reform but to project to the public a visible image of the threat of
underdevelopment. To do this, it must maintain the existence of a sizable
number of underdeveloped nations. To do this, it must fail in the struggle to
reduce poverty, human rights violations and prison reform. Poverty may
decrease and violations too - but not because of development policies.
You will rightly demand to know how and why a society such as ours
would tolerate a development discourse designed to fail in the fight against
poverty and human rights violations.
92 In this regard, Professor Phil Ostien of the Univeristy of Jos is co-ordinating an important
ongoing research project designed to document the workings of Sharia in the northern
states of Nigeria on the ground and the effects on Muslim and Christian identities (see
Ostien 2002).
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Human rights training: designed to fail?
Reiman’s work is useful for two reasons. Firstly, like Duffield, he asks
taboo questions, and makes proposals that seem on the surface illegitimate.
It is preposterous, for example, to propose that the criminal justice system is
equivalent to that which it aims to prevent. It is outrageous (as he himself
claims) to propose that the criminal justice system in USA creates and
maintains the injustices it purports to be fighting against, and that it is
“designed to fail” (1995: 1). Similarly in the field of human rights and penal
reform it seems outrageous to suggest that human rights training could
contribute to perpetuating injustices, and that one of its effects is to “create”
certain forms of injustice in order to deflect attention from others. Duffield’s
work, as I have already considered exemplifies a way of asking the
sometimes almost morally offensive questions that crave answers but are
generally silenced or invisible. For example in a critical case study of
developmental practice in Sudan he argues that, “donor governments and
aid agencies have reinforced the relations of violence they oppose” (2001:
19). A similar argument could be made with regard to human rights training.
If it makes little difference but to legitimate a sitting regime then it is of
little comfort to the prisoners awaiting trial.
Not a conspiracy theory
Reiman is quite aware that his desiccation of the US criminal justice system
is likely to make people respond defensively and dismissively and that such
critiques leave one open to vilification and ridicule. Reiman is careful to
assure his readers that his is not a conspiracy theory. Likewise, I do not
believe that participants in the field of development assistance are
consciously intending to perpetuate an unjust world. This analysis is not
about apportioning blame or questioning the motives of employees in
government agencies, national and international non-government
organisations, voluntary agencies or individuals. Just because the argument
points towards the protection of certain interests that coincide with those of
interveners, does not mean interveners are consciously acting to promote
their own interests. Development assistance (like criminal justice policy) is
a product of a historical development that current participants are caught up
in. The purpose is not to accuse individuals within the system but to point to
the historically produced social consequences of the system.
Pyrrhic defeat and historical inertia
Reiman operates with a two pronged theoretical apparatus which he
designates the pyrrhic defeat theory accompanied by a theory of historical
inertia. He argues that “the criminal justice system fails to reduce crime
while making it look like crime is the work of the poor” (1995: 4). Applied
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to prisons and human rights training this suggests that human rights training
fails to reduce human rights violations and abuse of prisoners while at the
same time making it look as though such abuses are the sole fault of the
structures and systems in developing countries. This blaming strategy is a
refusal to recognise the role of the unequal distribution of global resources.
By focussing on symptoms, blaming recipients and claiming that
interventions fail because conditions are not right or training was not long
enough, intense enough or recipients not receptive enough etc., attention is
deflected from social and economic material conditions (that is inequalities)
that mitigate against the very changes intended. Reiman calls this perverse
dynamic a pyrrhic defeat theory. The pyrrhic defeat argument is a reversal
of the classic pyrrhic victory designation that alludes to a military victory
gained at such great cost that it amounts to a defeat. In Reiman’s words “the
pyrrhic defeat theory argues that the failure of the criminal justice system
yields such benefits to those in positions of power that it amounts to
success” (1995: 4-5). We must not deny the stakes there are in the practices
of development assistance for interveners, donors and recipients/partners.
Intervening agencies and NGO’s are caught up within a historically
developed discourse that has often-invisible implications beyond the
immediate. As Reiman puts it “rather than being anyone’s conscious plan
the system reflects attitudes so deeply embedded in tradition as to appear
natural” (1995: 6). Even if the failures and injustices of the system were
visible it is not in the majority’s interest to make any change for the simple
reason that they are beneficiaries of the system. There is no dynamic for
change within the logic of the situation. This is what Reiman calls the
historical inertia explanation.
Human rights training is problematic in the sense that programmes attempt
to impose Western standards, yet more dangerously they may reproduce
conditions of domination by making us blind to those conditions that
maintain global inequalities. Training interventions become a tool in global
politics that function to create the appearance of a desire to “help” and
distract attention from broader socio-political and economic issues. That is,
it is my suspicion that our apparently good-willed interventions blind us to
other more vital factors and more significant social, historical and political
processes that are at work.
There is a need to be aware that human rights training is part of a
global(ising) discourse or at least a discourse that has global implications
and consequences. As we remain preoccupied with labelling deviants,
blaming victims for not learning the conventions correctly and not putting
into practice our imported recommendations, attention is diverted from the
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real and substantial material differences that inform and underpin the
respective practices of our respective worlds.
So far in this chapter I have engaged with the issue of the position of
development and donor agencies and NGO’s involved with prison reform in
wider dynamics and relations. Development agencies and NGO’s have
discovered a new niche, created by the shift towards global liberal
governance, a new set of problems deserving of their attention, to which
they can apply their technical know how and regulatory skills. In this
process problems of prison reform become framed in particular ways such
that intervening agencies retain an ongoing function. One question I believe
we need to keep constantly in mind is “who benefits?” The above utilisation
and appropriation of Duffield’s and Reiman’s lines of argument serves to
help capture the complex of relations of power that are embedded in North–
South relations where change is a stated intention. In the following section I
want to take a step back and reflect on the extent to which it is necessary to
engage in critique whilst at the same time introducing a third analogy.
From a semiotic of accusation to pragmatic impact
Drawing on work by Johanna Motzkau (forthcoming), in strangely enough
the field of child development, 93 I address here the possibility of engaging in
transformative criticism/interlocution. As the colonial project carried with it
in built assumptions about the relation of developed to developing countries,
so contemporary projects designed to bring about particular types of
institutional reform and promote development along particular avenues bear
their own assumptions, as I have discussed above. Development
interventions are not neutral. Debunking myths of neutrality and altruism is
one way of beginning to get to grips with global development discourses.
Motzkau articulates a desire to create space for critical purchase and impact
in the realm of theorising children’s development that parallels my own
desire to reflect critically and problematise international development
assumptions, strategies and practices. Motzkau’s key point is that it is
necessary to articulate critique/criticism in a form that can be heard by the
discourse itself, if we want to succeed in doing anything more than
deconstruction. A critical deconstructive challenge that remains invisible to
the discourse being critiqued is unlikely to change much. There is, in
Motzkau’s terms, an urgent need for the creation of pragmatic spaces (cf.
Jefferson 2003b).
93 Erica Burman (1994) has also explicitly linked the discourse of child development with
international development.
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Motzkau describes how authors from a critical psychology of development
perspective show how “linear, progressive and goal-directed” models of
development leave children defined as “a structure of deficits”:
They are defined by what they cannot do and judged by what they should
be able to do, while the appropriateness of their growth is assessed and
guarded alongside the detailed timetable of natural maturation that
minutely describes what is to be anticipated as a further sign of growth.
The predefined goal of this development is the specific prototypical ideal
of a rationally thinking ‘normal adult’. As an implicit result of this children
are not visible as full participants in this present society, because they are
positioned as provisional and incomplete ‘becomings’, not yet capable of
occupying a serious position as ‘beings’ here and now. The traditional
developmental discourse textualises them as constantly shifting between
having to be protected, to be guided and to be spoken for on the one hand,
whilst on the other hand children are expected to provide their well
meaning guardians with the anticipated indicators of healthy maturation.
This creates a diverse set of ambivalent and weak positions for children.
(Motzkau forthcoming: 3-4)
I cite this section of text in full because it is possible to substitute
developing countries for children and development for growth and still find
the critique relevant:
They are defined by what they cannot do, and judged by what they should
be able to do, while the appropriateness of their development is assessed
and guarded alongside the detailed timetable of natural maturation that
minutely describes what we are to anticipate as a further sign of this
development. The predefined goal of this development is the specific
prototypical ideal of a rational and economic ‘developed country’. As an
implicit result of this developing countries are not visible as full
participants in this present global society, because they are positioned as
provisional and incomplete ‘becomings’, not yet capable of occupying a
serious position as ‘beings’ now. The traditional developmental discourse
textualises them as constantly shifting between having to be protected, to
be guided and to be spoken for on the one hand, whilst on the other hand
developing countries are expected to provide their well meaning guardians
with the anticipated indicators of healthy development. This creates a
diverse set of ambivalent and weak positions for developing countries.
This line of critique shows how developing countries are judged by the
West according to the standards of the West in the name of the values of the
West. A paternalistic, patronising condescension pervades international
development strategies and practices that simultaneously offer and deliver
aid (humanitarian and developmental) and demand signs that this aid is
appropriately utilised. Developing countries must measure up to standards
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imposed from without. Developing countries are seen as “provisional and
incomplete”; protection and guardianship as conditional on the
demonstration of conformity to the demands of healthy “normal”
development. Here deviance is defined a priori.
To a certain extent this is a critique I identify with. It is persuasive. Yet is it
transformative? This is the question Motzkau challenges critics with. The
above critique is framed within a “semiotics of accusation”. Going into
more detail than I wish to, about the deconstructive strategies utilised by
critics Motzkau illuminates how the ironical twists of language used to
deconstruct make the critiques invisible to the dominant discourse which
meets them head on as accusation and blame. In the context within which I
work, that is an NGO working with partners in developing countries to
alleviate human suffering and campaign for the abolition of torture and
organised violence, it is easy to imagine how a deconstructive critique of
their work in the above terms would be met with hostility and
defensiveness. The self-perception of members of staff is that they are not
there to oppress their partners, or to impose Western standards on them,
except where Western standards are obviously the best. (And here they are
trapped in a realm of inevitable and unavoidable ethnocentrism).
Such critiques inevitably meet resistance and are not heard or understood
because framed as an accusation and attribution of blame they close down
the space for transformation by forcing actors on the defensive.
Opening up transformative spaces
My own approach differs somewhat from Motzkau’s. My focus is not on the
talk about development but about making the assumptions of interventions a
matter of criticism. What happens when I make the move from language to
assumptions? What is the status of assumptions? Are they not betrayed in
language? Is it not to texts I look to find evidence of problematic
assumptions? Will these taken for granted (by practitioners) assumptions,
that I with my researcher’s eagle eye can spot, not be as invisible and
accusatory as the aforementioned deconstructive strategies? I contend that
assumptions are not limited to texts but lived out in practice and that shared
practice gives opportunities for the framing of internally driven critiques
that might have the potential to be transformatory. My own position whilst
to a degree critical is not operating with a “scenography of opposition”
(Motzkau) but a dynamics of confession, for I am by virtue of my own
ambivalent position in an interventionist organisation implicated by the
criticisms I develop. I advocate no singular responsibility for global
inequality but point to how we in the West benefit from the dynamics that
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are operating. By pointing the finger at the West I am pointing at myself and
applying my critique within a dynamics of confession, complexification and
problematisation. Like Motzkau I search for gaps, gaps in practice, gaps in
my own practice, gaps primarily between stated intentions, assumptions and
actual practice. And they are multiple. And visible. The question that
potentially fuels transformation is why, when gaps are so visible, are they
ignored? How are gaps sustained? One answer has its roots in a fear of
undermining the ground on which one stands. A second obstacle is the scale
of the problem. Local NGO’s struggling to bring about change are caught up
in dynamics of global proportions. Whilst it is possible to analyse local
practices and discover signs of global injustice, it is less easy to intervene to
resolve global issues than it is to intervene locally and partially. It is
understandable that NGO’s both local and international have an
interventionist stance, for something needs to be done. As a practising
academic and a kind of practitioner, it is my endeavour to attempt to ensure
that not just anything is done but something appropriate.
In summary, dominant models and practices of development can be
criticised but critiques are likely to remain invisible unless they are
articulated from within and unless they are rooted in actual practice.
Motzkau describes how it is in being addressed to a target that
deconstructive critique loses its grip and becomes invisible. If we, as
practice-based, practice-informed researchers can develop critiques from
within, from our own ambivalent subject positions, treading the slippery line
between theory and practice, then maybe there is a chance that actual
practices of intervention can be transformed, making them more appropriate
to actual historical and material conditions on the ground in developing
countries and contributing to genuine, relevant transformations there. Given
this scenario critiques are not addressed to an other but to self, giving them a
more immediate, pragmatic energy. I am not sure I would call the space
created by contradictory gaps a “development free space” as Motzkau does,
but rather a “wild space” appropriating a term from Kristeva (cited by
Olthuis 1997). There is a free space, a wild space that opens up when one
examines intentions, assumptions and actual practices (including
consequences). It is conceptually and practically wild and perhaps could
best be filled by an intermingling of theory in practice and practical theory.
Motzkau (forthcoming: 14) puts this nicely: to attain critical impact it is
necessary to “pragmatically link deconstructive doubt to those ambivalences
that have already taken hold within the practice”. Being aware of
possibilities for co-option this is a slippery, contingent position for the
researcher. Practice-based research allows for the ambivalence of shifting
subject positions and allows the researcher to develop criticisms that are not
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addressed to a foreign alien other but to an equally guilty, equally
responsible set of resonances of self.
Summary
I make no argument with those who claim Nigerian prisons are in dire need
of transformation. The Nigerian Prisons Service and their personnel are
equally aware of the extent of the difficulties they face. In a speech made at
the training workshop described earlier, the director-general of the Ghanaian
Prisons Service described the problems shared by Ghanaian and Nigerian
prisons as “hydra-headed”. Lack of funds, overcrowding, a slow process of
in/justice, a huge proportion of awaiting trial prisoners – these are all
problems that the prison service is well aware of. My argument has been
that targeting such institutions in terms of their deviance from a set of
international human rights norms, and as representative of state deviance
more generally, maybe misses the mark. By defining them in “our” terms as
deviant rather than taking them seriously on their own terms as different we
miss the chance to take advantage of pragmatic spaces and make strategic
alliances that potentially could further genuine long-term transformation. To
challenge everyday practices of mundane violence, for example, requires
prolonged dialogue as well as critical self-reflection about the “ubiquity of
cruelty” (Medlicott 2003) in our own prisons. Viewing Nigerian prisons as
different rather than deviant is to hold up a mirror to contemporary Western
penal practices. As we recognise difference we also see ourselves. Perhaps
this is why it is so much easier to see them as deviant?
This relates to the second of my initial questions – why do we think we have
anything to offer in terms of criminal justice institution reform given the
current state of Western criminal justice policies and practices (increasing
prison populations, decreasing respect for civil liberties, increased
surveillance, the indiscriminate use of anti-terror legislation etc. (cf. Garland
2001; Feeley 2004)). What can developing countries learn from the West
about prison reform? Can we teach them anything and should we be trying?
Critique of developing countries’ prisons and human rights records allows
us to be distracted from the state of play in our own criminal justice fields.
Human rights training builds on the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the
Treatment of Offenders. Are these a guarantee that prisoners’ rights are not
violated in Western prisons? This question becomes all the more poignant in
the light of revelations from the American run Abu Ghraib prison in post-
Saddam Hussein Iraq. These are questions that demand answers but are
beyond the remit of this dissertation.
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In this chapter I have broadened the framework of my analysis to situate
human rights training interventions within a global perspective. Whilst
chapters four through eight introduced in some detail the local context of
practice that confronts and is confronted by human rights training
interventions, this chapter has sought to add another dimension to the
dynamics of intervenative practice. This serves to further complicate matters
and at the same time represents an attempt to grapple with the complexity of
ongoing social practice as local and global processes interact. In as much as
they are targets of intended change prison officers become caught up in
global dynamics of power, as do intervening agencies. Whilst my treatment
of these dynamics here is somewhat cursory, my point is that it is essential
to recognise and pay attention to the ways in which actors and practices are
always already caught up in global, historical and social processes. If we fail
to recognise this then we cannot fail but reproduce practices of domination
despite our intentions to reduce human suffering and bring about much
needed transformation.
At this point, all that remains is to summarise some of the arguments of this
dissertation and point to some possible future directions for research.
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Summary and conclusion
This study reveals the dynamics of the Nigerian Prisons Service. Admittedly
it does so partially but at the same time in a manner that aims not to simplify
and reduce the complexity of practices but rather to capture them in as
comprehensive a way as possible. It does so by approaching the field of
study in a particular way utilising a set of loosely connected conceptual
tools. Underlying the study is a focus on persons in contentious local
practices. The participation of persons in practice is the hub around which
the dissertation turns. As the participation of persons in and across different
practices has been examined so the dynamics of the generation of relations
of structure and subjectivity have been revealed. Relations of structure and
subjectivity emerge, that is are produced as aspects of each other as persons
participate in practice.
Chapter by chapter summaries
In chapter one the background for the project was introduced and intentions
declared. The dissertation set out, from a critical psychological perspective
to explore the dynamics of a specific example of an apparatus of state
security, namely the Nigerian prisons, with particular reference to prison
staff and interventions aimed at bringing about change.
In chapter two the reader was invited to accompany the researcher as I
entered the research field. Issues of access were discussed and illustrated
and ethnography as a field-based psychological method was proposed as a
legitimate and worthwhile way of approaching the study of persons in
practice. Particular attention was paid to the way in which the researcher is
obliged to pursue the subjects of the research across different locations
given the significance traversing multiple contexts has for subjects’ selfunderstandings
and ongoing participation.
Chapter three introduced the conceptual lenses through which the research
field came to be viewed and some key concepts which have guided the
analysis. This guiding has not always been explicit. As the analysis
proceeded the concept persons-in-practice emerged as having particular
significance both analytically and methodologically. The concept points
both to the importance of directing attention to persons in practice, that is to
directing the research endeavour towards subjects as they participate in
everyday practice and also to the fact that persons should not be
conceptualised as external to practice. Nor should practice be
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conceptualised as depopulated, that is as without subjects. Drawing on
Critical Psychology and the ongoing work of Jean Lave to establish a theory
of social practice that does not contribute to ongoing subjugation or
reproduce already existing inequalities, attention was drawn to the
importance of theorising learning in relation to change and everyday life, of
always recognising the situatedness of subjects, and of exploring the varying
ways in which subjects handle their own lives and the possibilities presented
to them. In addition, the important idea that ongoing (often contentious)
social practice is the prime site in which relations of subjectivity and
structure are produced, was introduced.
Chapter four introduced the reader to the Nigerian Prisons Service, its
history and component parts. Of key interest was the introduction of the
prison institutions and the nationalistic and humanistic ways in which prison
officers view their jobs. This background chapter laid a foundation for the
substantive empirical chapters.
Chapter five pursued Torhile’s trajectories of participation in the prison
service and beyond. It offered reflections on the significance of Torhile’s
specific trajectory and his way of engaging in prison practice at the same
time as it introduced standard aspects and dynamics of prison practice.
Chapter six turned the focus towards institutional aspects of training seen
from the perspective of subjects’ participation in them. Discipline emerged
as a concept of importance to prison staff and prison staff training and the
logic of penality featuring assumptions of guilt and the inevitability of
punishment was revealed. This logic emerged during an analysis of
disciplinary procedures and the totally institutionalising nature of training
schools as similar to prison began to suggest itself.
Chapter seven continued the institutional focus and showed how the logic of
penality revealed in the training schools is also pervasive – perhaps not so
surprisingly – in the prisons. In this chapter, as relations between prisoners
and prison officers were explored, a dynamic underpinned by a process of
ordering and othering was exposed that showed itself most explicitly in
incidences of mundane violence during prisoner admission boards.
Mundane violence was contextualised in the light of the logic of penality,
the strength of discipline as an organising factor and the ideology of
corrections that dominate prison practice.
Chapter eight traced the movement of prison officers from training school to
prison examining aspects of this trajectory drawing particular attention to
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the ensuing tensions between practice and training, and senior and junior
officers. Also explored in this chapter are the ways in which officers
conceive of prisoners and the implications of this.
The empirical and analytical chapters provide the context with which
externally sponsored training interventions are faced. The final three
substantive chapters pursued themes relating to interventions and change,
situating interventions within a global(ising) discourse. In chapter nine a
specific intervention was introduced, examined and problematised in the
light of developing understandings of practice and the conceptual tools
being utilised. It was suggested that it is perhaps not surprising that such
interventions fail to result in sustained institutional transformations and
social justice, given the assumptions about persons that underlie training
methods.
In chapter ten these themes were pursued via an examination of perspectives
on change and changing practice. Change was shown to have multiple
meanings when considered in the context of persons participating in practice
and this points again to the necessity of developing local, situated
understandings of practice if one’s aim is to promote transformation. The
purpose of the chapter was to expose the gap between abstract
understandings of change and persons’ own situated and changing
understandings and practices in relation to intended and ongoing change. It
was argued that interventions that are not rooted in understandings of the
complexity of persons in practice but rather superficially grounded in
abstract and hidden assumptions are unlikely to make much difference to
concrete practice.
In chapter eleven the focus expanded to examine the local practices of
intervening agencies as they are framed by and constitute parts of a global
politics of development. Human rights training interventions were located as
relevant players in attempts by the West to engage in societal
reconstruction, in a sense to rehabilitate “deviant states”. Critically
positioning interventions within unequal North - South relations allows one
to see interventions as not merely motivated by altruistic intentions but also
feeding into broader sometimes potentially more insidious agendas. At the
same time as this critique was proposed reflections were offered on the
necessity of internally driven critiques, that is critiques from within, that
dare to question the taken for granted underpinnings of ongoing practice.
This final expansion of the employed perspective looks beyond the local
aspects of Nigerian prison practice and interventions and beyond the
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normally defined boundaries of psychology. This is a necessary move given
that persons are always already caught up not only in local practices and
struggles but also in enduring, global struggles.
Having provided a chapter by chapter summary I now present a general
summary of the dissertation’s arguments in the light of its intentions and the
conceptual tools I have utilised.
Conclusion
The study reveals not only dynamics – the microhydraulics of power (Sim
2003) at work for example in the relations of prison officers and prisoners –
it also presents the empirical reality with which interventions are confronted
and which interventions confront. This is perhaps the dissertation’s most
remarkable achievement given the general absence of such material. The
dissertation has examined prison and training school practices and the
trajectories of prison officers across a variety of everyday practices from
within and below, with a focus on the subjects of training and the actors
implicated in prison practice. It reveals the logic of penality common to
training school and prison and its operation in relation to discipline and an
ideology of corrections.
The dissertation presents an ethnography not of chaos, volatility and
dystopia but rather an ethnography of persons engaging in the practices of
their everyday lives where their lives are characterised not only by the
objective possibilities open to them but also by the ways in which these
possibilities are challenged and become significant for persons as they
engage in practice.
The presentation of the empirical reality of prison practice in Nigeria
functions to locate prison practice in a wider context (e.g. the context of
being a target for intervention) at the same time as it firmly locates and
situates prison officers in their own changing contexts as they pursue their
respective trajectories of participation and occupy changing positions in
relation to changing constellations of participants. A focus on persons in
practice compels a focus on the material aspects of everyday life. It brings
us down to earth as it were. The concern of this dissertation has been not
with abstract theorising but with the application of particular conceptual
tools to allow for an analysis that illuminates practice in a manner that
refuses to contribute to ongoing unequal relations of domination. At the
same time the empirical material does feed in to conceptual discussions. It
has not been my intention to engage in deep theoretical work about the
relations between concepts and what they contribute to the ongoing
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development of psychological theorising or a theory of social practice. It is
my hope however that others might be able to glean something from the
way in which I have put specifically chosen conceptual tools to work during
my analysis of the empirical material. I hope too that this might develop into
ongoing collaborative work.
Whilst this study does not contribute so much to conceptual developments it
does however present a particular approach to the study of psychological
phenomena in complex and sensitive social fields, an approach that has
methodological as well as analytical significance. Following Holland and
Lave I have focussed on contentious local practice as a means of accessing
the generation of relations of structure and subjectivity. As a result of this
focus I have proposed the concept persons-in-practice as a way of thinking
about the ways persons participate in practice that refuses to reduce persons
to practice or practice to persons, but frames and addresses persons as
always already situated and practice as always already populated. Situating
persons and populating practices also involves recognition that persons
move across practices demanding that the researcher in his or her quest to
understand the way lives are lived does the same.
Similarly, I have addressed relations of power not by proposing a theory of
power but by adopting a particular approach to the microhydraulics of
power. I have come at relations of power via the day-to-day participation of
subjects in ongoing practices that are infused by and productive of ongoing
relations of domination and subordination.
At the same time as the dissertation reveals the empirical reality – what I in
chapter three call the deep context – it has also problematised interventions
by examining the assumptions that inform them (and the global political
dynamics they contribute to and are caught up in). The presentation of the
deep context of prison officers in practice challenges intervening agencies’
own practice and their underlying assumptions about personhood, learning
and change at the same time as it provides a basis for thinking about
alternative forms of intervention or of rethinking the appropriateness of
intervening at all. This dissertation is not the place for this exploration of
alternatives. Despite being a “kind of practitioner”, given my institutional
base and commitment to RCT, it is not the researcher’s role to propose new
tools. This must be a project for practitioners and researchers together.
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Chapter twelve - Summary and conclusions
Future directions (On the road from Kaduna to Jos, Plateau state)
There remain of course limitations to this dissertation, not least the fact that
it has involved a high degree of selection in relation to the analysis and
presentation of the field material collected. That is to say there remain a
number of interesting themes that have not been addressed here. The current
work lays a foundation however that could usefully be built on. In particular
a more in-depth historical study would be useful examining the relation
between development policies aimed at reforming prison systems, the
colonial discourse that established them and the relations of these to
domestic discourses on criminal justice both in contemporary times and at
the time when the criminal justice system and prisons were established in
Nigeria. This would involve archival work that has been beyond the scope
of the present study. Such a historical and comparative study on the relation
between ongoing domestic policies and the policies put in practice
elsewhere would undoubtedly raise some important issues linked to the
global(ising) dynamics I pointed to in chapter eleven.
A weakness of the current study is that I have been unable to delve in any
depth into the ongoing social and societal changes that Nigeria has been and
is undergoing in relation to the “culture of punishment” (Ruggiero, Ryan
and Sim 1995: 1) that operates. Further work could be done to locate my
micro-analyses within broader socio-political developments, tracing the
relations between prison politics and practices and the changing political
climate.
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This dissertation has highlighted the importance of subject perspectives.
One group of subjects who have not been considered in any detail but whose
voice would add an extremely important dimension are those of prisoners.
Questions about prisoners’ experiences of imprisonment and how they
handle and conceive of the everyday practices of othering, ordering and
mundane violence as well as practices of reform, rehabilitation and
correction are important though potentially problematic issues to address.
Perhaps the most feasible approach would be to develop contacts with
former prisoners. The most interesting group to target for such a study
would be ex-armed robbery suspects, those prisoners most stigmatised and
generally speaking held in the worst conditions. However since such
persons do not to my knowledge congregate in specific places (except
prisons!) they are likely difficult to trace. Such obstacles can only be
overcome given open research designs and long-term projects.
Another set of notable absentees from this study are the senior managers of
the Nigerian Prison Service, the Controller General of Prisons and his
immediate subordinates. I had very limited contact with this group, though
progress reports were submitted at the end of both periods of fieldwork. One
reason for this is that the Controller General of Prisons changed between
phase one and phase two of the fieldwork and I never succeeded in
accessing the new Controller General. At this stage in the research process I
propose developing a summary report of this dissertation and submitting it
to the new CGP in the hope that a dialogue might be possible. Many prison
officers I spoke with asked what the research would be used for and pleaded
with me to make their case to the top staff. Submitting a new summary
report would be the least I could do to honour their co-operation.
In the introduction to this dissertation I raised the issue of the absence of
material exploring prisons in post-transition countries in a comparative
manner. The persons-in-practice perspective and the field-based
psychological approach advocated in this dissertation could valuably be
applied in other post-transition countries. Such studies would further
develop ways of thinking about prison staff under other different and
changing conditions. Whilst this study introduces a perspective and a
methodological approach that seem useful for the study of prison practices
and prison staff in post-transition contexts, these could also be applied to
other types of perpetrative institutions, that is places where persons are
deprived of their liberty and at risk of violence, maltreatment or injustice,
for example prisoner-of-war camps, refugee camps, police detention,
vigilante detention, refugee detention centres etc. Sensitive sites pose a
challenge to practice and a challenge to research. I argued in chapter two
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Chapter twelve - Summary and conclusions
psychologists ought not to shy away from the dangers and challenges such
sites pose. Rather, it should be an ethical imperative for psychological
research to concern itself with precisely such sites where lives are literally at
stake.
This dissertation provides some clues about how to explore and
conceptualise persons’ participation in complex and sensitive social
practices. It is my hope that the methods advocated, the concepts utilised
and the arguments made might contribute to opening pragmatic and
liberative spaces where the ongoing local and enduring struggles of persons
in practice might take centre stage.
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DANISH SUMMARY
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308

Konfronteret med praksis
en ansats til en kritisk psykologi om
fængselspraksis i Nigeria
Danish summary
I de senere år er fængsler og fængselspersonale i udviklingslande, der for
nylig har gennemgået en demokratiseringsproces, blevet mål for
interventioner, ofte i form af menneskerettighedstræning. Det skyldes, at
fængsler og fængselsbetjente udgør en del af den repressive, statslige
sikkerhedstjeneste, som er kendetegnende for diktatoriske regimer. I en
demokratiseringsproces bliver de så mål for eksternt sponsorerede
interventioner som følge af, at de nye regeringer ønsker at demonstrere
deres demokratiske akkreditiver både over for borgerne i det pågældende
land og over for det internationale samfund (Rønsbo 2000). Siden 2000 har
den danske organisation Rehabiliterings- og Forskningscentret for
Torturofre (RCT), som er aktiv på dette område, udviklet et forskningstema,
der fokuserer på sådanne udviklingstendenser. Temaet handler om statslige
sikkerhedstjenesters dynamikker og muligheder for forandring og
repræsenterer en streng af det arbejde, RCT udfører med henblik på at
forebygge tortur og organiseret vold. Denne afhandling og den forskning,
som den er baseret på, placerer sig inden for dette forskningstema og
bidrager til dette temas fortsatte udvikling som forskningsområde.
Fængsler og interneringsanstalter udgør, efter min mening, klassiske
områder, når man vil belyse mennesker i praksis og psykologiske
fænomener. Jeg mener derfor, at det må være etisk nødvendigt for
psykologer at forske i og teoretisere over den måde, hvorpå sådanne
institutioner fungerer, og den måde, hvorpå subjekter bliver konstitueret
sådanne steder – ikke ved at søge tilflugt i reduktionistiske, simplistiske
modeller, men ved gennem et intensivt, systematisk engagement at forsøge
at afspejle den kompleksitet, der kendetegner sådanne sociale områder, og
menneskers komplekse deltagelse i dem.
På baggrund af otte måneders etnografisk feltarbejde udforsker
afhandlingen empirisk de forhold og praksisser, som de nigerianske
fængselsbetjente deltager i. Intentionen er dels at belyse fængelspersonalets
praksisser, når de er under uddannelse, og når de er på arbejde, samt de
diskurser, som er indlejret heri, dels at udvikle en begrebsliggørelse af,
hvordan forandring forstås i sådanne institutionelle kontekster. Intentionen
er ikke at undsige fængselspraksisser og fængselssystemet i Nigeria, men at
forsøge at forstå, kontekstualisere og problematisere således at der kan opstå
sprækker i de begrebsmæssige rammer, som definerer området, hvorved der
309

Danish summary
kan skabes rum for forandring og for alternative måder at udføre
fængselsarbejdet på. Pointen er at stille spørgsmålstegn ved den
selvfølgelighed, der præger hverdagslivets fængselspraksis samt praksis hos
dem, der søger at skabe forandring.
Afhandlingens opbygning
Afhandlingen er inddelt i tre dele. Kapitel 1 til 3 udgør første del, hvor
projektet, metoden og de begrebsmæssige redskaber, som lægges til grund
for analysen af det empiriske materiale, introduceres.
Kapitel 2 om metoden handler primært om den proces, det var at bevæge sig
ind på feltet. De temaer, der tages op, drejer sig om forhold, der har at gøre
med at få adgang til forskningens primære institutioner og subjekter, det vil
sige fængslernes uddannelsesinstitutioner, fængslerne og fængselsbetjentene.
Der argumenteres for en udvidet, praksisbaseret forskning som
en nødvendig tilgang til at udforske psykologiske temaer inden for
komplekse og følsomme sociale felter.
Kapitel 3 lægger grunden for en efterfølgende analyse af det empiriske
materiale ved at introducere en række af løst forbundne begrebsmæssige
værktøjer, som er hentet fra den Kritisk Psykologiske forskningstradition,
og som er forbundet med det forsøg, Jean Lave har gjort på at udvikle en
sammenhængende teori om social praksis. Centrale begreber om
mennesker-i-praksis introduceres, og der argumenteres for, at ontologien
gives forrang for epistemologien. Samtidig introduceres en analytisk
strategi, der fokuserer på subjekters deltagelse i omstridte praksisser som
skabende for relationer mellem struktur og subjektivitet.
Den anden og mest substantielle del af afhandlingen er præsentationen og
analysen af det empiriske materiale vedrørende fængselsbetjentenes
grunduddannelse og fængselspraksis, og den udgøres af kapitel fire til otte.
Dette materiale anskueliggør den dybe kontekst, som eksterne
uddannelsesinterventioner konfronterer og bliver konfronteret med.
I kapitel fire bliver scenen sat ved at introducere det nigerianske
fængelsvæsen, dets kolonialistiske historie og aktuelle strukturer og formål.
Kapitlet er fortrinsvis deskriptivt og faktuelt, om end der også gøres et
forsøg på at formidle et indtryk af, hvordan det føles at være i de
nigerianske fængsler. Den måde, hvorpå fængselsbetjentene betragter deres
arbejde, præsenteres også.
310

Danish summary
Kapitel fem afdækker den betydning, en specifik fængselsbetjents liv har for
hans engagement i praksis, idet der derved peges på de komplekse og
kontingente relationer mellem hans specifikke fortid og hans specifikke
måde at deltage i den aktuelle praksis på. Den pågældende betjents liv og
karriere i fængselsvæsenet tjener til at illustrere aspekter af
fængselsvæsenets kultur og praksis såvel som aspekter ved betjentens egen
subjektivitet. Hans job præsenteres gennem hans egen beretning om to
typiske arbejdsdage, den ene i skolen og den anden i fængselsgården. Disse
præsentationer leder hen til de følgende kapitlers analyse af skolens og
fængslets praksisser.
Kapitlerne seks og syv handler om de institutionelle praksisser, som
henholdsvis fængselsbetjent-elever, uddannede fængselsbetjente og fanger
befinder sig i. Det hævdes, at fængslets skoler og fængslerne demonstrerer
en strukturel homologi, der er bygget på en fælles logik om straf, hvilket får
konsekvenser både for den måde, hvorpå fangerne behandles, og for den
måde, hvorpå menneskerettighedstræning modtages.
Kapitel seks undersøger de procedurer, rutiner og praksisser, der udgør
hverdagens arbejdsliv for de fængselsbetjente, der gennemgår uddannelse i
en af de tre fungerende fængselsskoler. Det er af afgørende betydning, at vi
sætter os ind i denne lokale forståelse af uddannelsen, hvis vi skal kunne
begribe den måde, hvorpå eksternt sponsoreret træning opfattes af
fængselspersonalet. Disciplin præsenteres som et dominerende,
organiserende princip i skolens praksis, men det vises også, hvordan
disciplinen kan blive undergravet i den praksis, som til stadighed foregår.
Kapitel syv undersøger ligeledes de procedurer, rutiner og praksisser, som
udgør hverdagslivet for fængselspersonalet. Straffens logik forfølges og
andetgørelsens og sorterings-praksisser diskuteres som karakteristiske for
den måde, hvorpå fængselspersonalet forholder sig til fangerne.
Forbedringens ideologi og dens relation til straffens og disciplinens logik
introduceres i sammenhæng med det, jeg kalder for den prosaiske vold.
Kapitel otte dokumenterer og afdækker den måde, hvorpå elever foretager
og forstår overgangen fra elev til færdiguddannet fængselsbetjent. Ved at
trække på interviewmateriale udforskes tre sæt af relationer, nemlig
relationer mellem skolebaserede betjente og fængselsbaserede betjente,
relationer mellem junior- og seniorbetjente og relationer mellem personale
og fanger. Fængselsbetjentenes tilkendegivelse af spændinger og potentielle
modsætninger, der opstår som følge af overgangen, uddybes.
311

Danish summary
De sidste tre kapitler forud for konklusionen udgør tredje del af
afhandlingen og undersøger en konkret intervention, forskellige forståelser
af forandring og de globale uligheds-dynamikker, som interventionerne
befinder sig i.
Kapitel ni præsenterer og problematiserer en eksternt sponsoreret trænings-
intervention, der sigter på at orientere fængselsbetjente om FN’s Standard
Minimums Regler for Behandlingen af Lovovertrædere. De centrale,
underliggende antagelser vedrørende læring ved sådanne interventioner og
træningsmetoder udforskes. Uddannelsesmateriale og publikationer med
relation til uddannelsen analyseres tillige med taler, der blev holdt af
centrale skikkelser blandt de involverede parter. Det hævdes, at det
fundament, sådanne uddannelsesinterventioner hviler på, må anses for at
være temmelig svagt, når det betænkes, at det skal tjene som afsæt for
omfattende forandringer af fængselspraksisser.
Kapitel ti forfølger temaet om dagsordner for og forståelse af fornadring,
som allerede var underforstået i det foregående kapitels fokus på en
reformintervention. Kløften mellem abstrakte praksis-fornægtende og
subjekt-fornægtende antagelser om forandring og de ideer om forandringer,
som præsenteres i min analyse af mennesker i praksis, fremhæves, i takt
med at jeg udforsker den modstand mod forandring, som er beskrevet af
fængselspersonalet, og yderligere problematiserer de dagsordener for
forandring, som organisationer udefra opretholder. Det er en central pointe,
at ens syn på forandring afhænger af ens position i praksis.
Kapitel elleve markerer en åbning, en gestus, der rækker ud over
afhandlingens og psykologiens generelle fokus på lokale praksisser hen
imod den globale dimension, som interventioner har. Uddannelse i
menneskerettigheder og strafreform-interventioner situeres kritisk som del
af en global(iserende) diskurs. Ved at søge tilflugt i tre analogier forsøges
det at forklare, hvordan virkningerne, hvad enten de er intenderede eller ej,
eller manglen på virkninger af sådanne interventioner, som de beskrives i
kapitel ni, kunne forstås. Ved at trække på Duffields (2001) og Reimans
(1979/2004) arbejder rejses afgørende spørgsmål om globale magtrelationer
og de intervenerende organisationers særinteresser. Dette kapitel rejser,
hvad der muligvis betragtes som illegitime eller grænseoverskridende
spørgsmål om interventioner. Det udforsker også temaet om vigtigheden af
den kritik, der rejses indefra, ud fra den overvejelse, at det ikke kun drejer
sig om at gøre noget, men at gøre noget hensigtsmæssigt.
312

Danish summary
Kapitel tolv konkluderer og opsummerer. Yderligere foreslås der nogle
retninger for den fremtidige forskning på området.
313

314

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330

APPENDICES
331

332

Appendices
Appendix 1 - Project’s developing design
An elusive focus
Since its tentative beginnings the project underwent significant yet subtle
alterations, especially as I entered the field. It is helpful, though simplistic,
to characterise the research in terms of stages including an overview of
original as well as changing intentions and how they became adapted in the
light of engagement in the field. In this appendix I show how this occurred
in a dynamic relation with the development and implementation of method.
Project phases
• Project proposal and application development (2 months)
• Fieldwork preparations including project design and background
reading (5 months)
• Fieldwork phase 1 (4 months)
• Post fieldwork revision of focus and method (4 months)
• Fieldwork phase 2 (4 months)
• Teaching and analysis of material
• Follow up visit to key informant (one year after cessation of
fieldwork phase 2)
In some ways the method outlined in the original project proposal bears
little resemblance to how I conducted myself in the field with the exception
of the external frame of fieldwork. This was a product of my own initial
unfamiliarity with fieldwork of this kind and my relative ignorance of
Africa and the field I was to enter. I included in the application, the proviso
that research in sensitive sites particularly in developing countries is
unpredictable, requiring an openness in attitude and an openness in terms of
method. When one is uncertain about what one is to be confronted with it is
unwise to have a plan from which one cannot deviate. At the start of the
fieldwork the project remained ill-defined and the method unclear, apart
from the fact that I planned to conduct semi-structured interviews. This was
a conscious and necessary strategy given the dominance of unknown factors
facing me. My minimalist plan was to arrive in Nigeria and attempt to
establish contact with the authorities and get permission to visit training
establishments and prisons and talk to staff, a potentially tall order in itself. I
contend that this minimalist plan is not an example of poor preparation or
lack of preparation but rather a realisation through the preparation process
333

Appendices
that the lie of the land was unknown and a wait and see strategy was
necessary.
The initial project entailed a double focus on prison staff and interveners.
This was to change as the project developed, where interveners as a specific
object of study came to occupy a lesser place. Externally sponsored
interventions such as those problematised in chapter nine are an addition to,
and an intervention in, broader prison staff training practices. An
understanding of indigenous, ongoing staff training is necessary as a
precondition for understanding externally sponsored training interventions.
This explains the broadening of the focus of the project from being limited
to studying the impact/effects of human rights training to examining the
practices implicated by training as practiced more generally. The focus
shifted from conceptualising training primarily as an intervention, to
conceptualising it rather as a quasi-precondition for ongoing practice. To
use Dreier’s terms this was a shift “from considering training as an isolated
activity to considering it in comprehensive relations with other activities and
structural influences” (Dreier, personal communication 4/11/2003).
Retrospectively the first phase of fieldwork was little more than a period of
familiarisation, first with Nigeria or at least the part of Nigeria I lived in and
travelled through, and then with the prison service structures and
establishments. It was also a period during which I attempted to allow
certain members of prison staff to grow familiar with my presence and
where I laid the groundwork for my second visit. I spent most of my
research time at the staff college, a place I was to spend rather little time at
during phase two of the fieldwork and a location that features rarely in this
dissertation. The few interviews I conducted were with directing staff
tracing the trajectory of their lives in the prison service. This was a good
strategy for getting a sense of some of the concerns that prison staff have
about their jobs. The first period of fieldwork also introduced me to the
dynamics of the service (hierarchies) and the importance of discipline
(drill). I was able to conduct some interviews with senior offices about their
expectations regarding the six-month course they were about to begin.
Again this was about sensitising myself to relevant issues rather than about
pursuing specific issues defined in advance. At the time the plan was more
formal and circumscribed. Indeed, at the end of the first period of fieldwork
I submitted two formal project proposals to the Controller General of
Prisons together with a covering letter describing how I wished to continue
my research by looking at the prisons and interviewing newly trained staff
about their work and their training. In an attempt to enhance the legitimacy
of this project I used a language that now sits rather uncomfortably. I spoke
334

Appendices
of objectives, purpose, stakeholders and outputs. These proposals like my
original proposal bare little resemblance to the approach I came to adopt.
Indeed they were refined and adapted already during the period in Denmark
between the two periods of fieldwork, an important time out both to take
stock of progress made and instantiate some distance for myself. During this
period I continued to think rather formally, designing a follow up study
where I planned to re-interview those senior officer trainees I had met at the
beginning of their training on two further occasions, namely at the end of
the training and subsequently some months later in their place of work. (I
highlight in chapter two the importance of the idea of tracing the movement
of staff across locations and action contexts). At the same time I was
beginning to think about how I could access the themes of my research in
more informal, ethnographic ways. During conversations in Denmark with
colleagues I had also begun to question the wisdom of using too much time
travelling around the country after specific individuals or to specific places.
These discussions certainly affected my decision to limit my travel. The
chance to live in the staff barracks adjacent to a prison and a training school
offered an opportunity that could not be turned down that profoundly
affected the flavour of the research. It was only at this stage that my
“method” became truly ethnographic. From the formal plans of the project
proposals I moved away from a question-answer/interview model towards a
model where I sought emergent data via a process of participating in
everyday life with prison staff. I explain in chapter two how a saying told to
me by my key informant, namely “the boy who asks too many questions
gets told too many lies” came to be an appropriate slogan for my method
from this point on.
After returning from the field I taught for a semester and my ongoing
analysis of material benefited from the opportunity to present and get
feedback from students. In January 2004 I decided a return visit to Nigeria
would be profitable and arranged to meet both with my supervisor Professor
Alemika and with Torhile my key informant. This was an important visit
and material gathered during it form the bulk of chapter 5. It was not part of
my original proposal but returning so long after my initial fieldwork was a
great opportunity to get a feel for Nigeria once more and discuss serious
analytical issues with relevant stakeholders.
Overview of empirical material
This dissertation draws on a variety of empirical material primarily
collected during two four-month periods of fieldwork in 2002 and one twoweek
follow up visit in January 2004. In line with my understanding of
335

Appendices
research as involving the active participation in practice of the researcher it
is important to recognise that the analysis of the empirical material has been
framed by my own embodied experiences. That is, as a result of the time
spent in Nigeria, amongst prison staff and in prison institutions I have
become a bearer of empirical material. Nigerian prisons have become an
aspect of my own subjectivity even as my own subjectivity plays a role in
forming the material. This embodied form of being in Nigeria, or of having
been in Nigeria has both implicitly and unavoidably and explicitly and
consciously informed both the collection of materials, and its representation
and analysis.
During the fieldwork in an attempt to capture on paper the way my own
subjectivity interacted with the realities I met as I conducted my life and my
research I made copious notes that I designated journal notes. In total I have
236 pages of journal notes and 176 pages of field notes. 94 During the writing
of this dissertation I have drawn primarily on notes from the second phase
of the research. These were read and the content thematised when I returned
from Nigeria. A very basic approach was taken to the notes. Each paragraph
was labelled based on its obvious content and then a number of general
themes were developed by a process of manually sorting these labels. The
paragraphs pertinent to each theme were then grouped together and read and
reread. This process of labelling and thematising was both systematic and
intuitive. It was informed by the embodied knowing I mentioned at the start
of this section. During the process of orienting myself in relation to my own
notes, as during the experience of conducting the fieldwork, certain themes
emerged as obviously important and certain links between themes became
clear. These themes were pursued as I listened and made notes on the
interviews I had conducted.
Whilst in chapter two I emphasise the importance of the ethnographic
engagement in practice of the researcher, I did also resort to more formal
methods of data collection, namely semi-structured, open interviews and
two brief surveys. In all I conducted fifty-nine formal interviews, seventeen
during the first period of the fieldwork, forty-one during the second period
and one extended interview with my primary informant during my follow up
visit in 2004. The latter interview took place over a period of a few days and
amounts to three and a half hours of tape. Most interviews were of around
thirty minutes duration. All were recorded. Tapes were listened to and notes
94 In addition, during the fieldwork I sent out email reports I called “updates” to friends,
family and colleagues. These served (roughly every three weeks) both to help me
summarise impressions and feel that I was in contact with a world beyond Nigeria. I remain
grateful to all those who responded to these updates.
336

Appendices
made on selected interviews conducted during phase two of the fieldwork
very soon after the interviews were conducted. On returning to Denmark
and re-listening to the tapes a second set of notes was made. Selected
interviews have subsequently been transcribed 95 and the transcriptions
examined in the light of the themes that emerge from the interviews
themselves, the themes emerging from the field and journal notes and the
issues I grant significance in the light of the questions I am addressing, the
conceptual tools I am applying and the purpose of the research. The
quotations utilised in the text have been partially “cleaned” in an attempt to
make their meaning clear to the reader without doing violence to what has
been said.
The subjects interviewed vary. During the first phase of the field work, I
interviewed the commandant of the prison staff college, the course coordinator
of one of the training schools, seven members of directing staff
(teachers) at the staff college and eight senior officers beginning a training
course at the staff college. The interviews with the directing staff focussed
on their careers in the prison service and functioned to introduce to me some
of the concerns of prison staff. I do not use any of these explicitly in this
dissertation. Neither do I utilise the first survey I conducted which was
distributed to participants on the 13 th basic course for senior officers. The
survey asked basic questions about number of years in the service, age,
rank, number of different jobs held in the service etc. Again it provided
useful background as I sought to make sense of the prison service and
develop early understandings of what being a prison officer involved.
Seventy-nine officers completed the survey, a return rate of over 70%. The
second survey I conducted resulted in a 100% return rate and was of officers
attending a one-week course in after care, referred to in chapter ten.
The interviews conducted during phase two of the fieldwork included an
interview with two other course co-ordinators and a second interview with
the previously mentioned course co-ordinator, repeat interviews with three
members of directing staff and one graduate of the basic course now
working in the prison as well as six interviews with graduates of the 13 th
basic course and a prison public relations officer. The interviews that I draw
on explicitly in the dissertation, besides the extended interview with Torhile,
are twelve interviews conducted with participants in the basic recruit course
(two of these were group interviews) as they participated in a course, and
95 Due to the poor quality of the recordings and the often heavy Nigerian accent I have been
obliged to conduct the transcribing myself. This has had the advantage of further immersing
me in the material, though it has also been time consuming.
337

Appendices
fifteen interviews with recent graduates of a basic recruit course conducted
on location at their place of work in the prisons.
As well as formal interviews I engaged in countless day-to-day
conversations and interactions with officers undergoing training and fully
trained officers. As I shared the home of a prison staff family so I shared the
activities in which Torhile and other family members engaged. I attended
the prison staff club, I went to church, to market, in search of fuel and to
parties. I visited other officers in their quarters and on occasion went out to
eat with them.
This account has been an attempt to portray the diversity of the empirical
material that lays the foundation for this dissertation. I am grateful to all the
prison officers whom allowed me access to their universe whether through
interview, casual conversation, shared car journey or shared beer.
Summary - primary empirical material utilised in the dissertation
Researcher’s embodied experience
“Shared living”
Field notes / journal notes
12 interviews with prison officers undergoing training
15 interviews with prison officers subsequent to training
3 ½ hour interview with key informant
338

Appendix 2 – acceptance letter
339
Appendices

Appendices
Appendix 3 – application to conduct research
340

Appendix 4 – Two letters of authority
341
Appendices

342
Appendices

Appendices
Appendix 5 - Federal Prison Camp Lamingo
Federal Prison Camp Lamingo has a capacity of eighty-four prisoners, but
on the day I attend chapel with a church group there are only twenty-eight.
Nine of these attend the worship service in the prison staff Christian
fellowship supported chapel of reconciliation. 96
The camp lies on the far outskirts of Jos. It is an agricultural prison,
commonly known as a prison farm. 97 Not visible from the main road, it first
comes into view as one drives down a rutted track past some abandoned
buildings, as well as some renovated ones that are apparently staff quarters.
We are greeted by two members of staff, the deputy superintendent in
charge who is dressed in scruffy, civilian clothes. A younger man dressed in
a military sweater with gaping holes under the arms lets us through the gate
and after a brief exchange about a piece of English originating machinery
standing forlorn just inside the gates I follow the Christian delegates past the
corrugated iron constructed dorms. The chapel is the next to last of these
and as we stroll through the compound I acknowledge the prisoners sitting
under the tree, dressed in blue prison wear. They return my greeting.
As we arrive a preacher/teacher is expounding the scriptures. Inside the tin
shack there is a small wooden pulpit and three rows of simple wooden pews.
There are nine prisoners, and six guests. A woman leads extemporaneous
prayers and a song exhorting us to give the glory to God for watching over
us. The prisoners are asked to "perform" a special number but have
unfortunately not prepared. One sings after some prompting. Another gives
a testimony citing the Bible as his sustenance and cure from a malaria
infection, given a lack of medicine in the clinic facilities. A preacher holds
forth on the theme of not looking back and by the time he made an
impromptu altar call there are five willing inmates ready to rededicate
themselves.
The building is spartan, constructed entirely of metal, a kind of big meccano
structure, the sides and roof decked with corrugated iron. There are
windows propped open and through these the prisoners in the yard can hear
96 There was no irony in the fact that the Christian fellowship of prison officers had
sponsored the chapel. It points merely to the integral relationship between morality,
religiosity and character formation in Nigerian thinking.
97 Its original purpose was to provide labour for the construction of the dam at Lamingo
that supplies water to Jos and surrounding area.
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Appendices
the enthusiastic strains of the singing which is almost but not quite drowned
out by keen drumming, clapping and percussion.
After the service there is no time for conversation. Indeed the visitors seem
anxious to get away though it could just be the rules. Prisoners shake our
hands enthusiastically as we leave. A prisoner I try to talk to about his
discharge seems not to understand my question. Another I ask about
conditions answers non-commitally that it is fine, as the deputy
superintendent watches on. We all sign the visitors’ book, my allegiance
today being to the church group. And the soap and washing powder we had
purchased is handed over. Quite a discussion ensued in the car during the
journey back, the theme being the way that the goods will be confiscated or
retained by staff such that prisoners will never see them. The church folk
strongly condemn the corruption of prison service staff, not least in the main
prison. The complaints of prisoners are also mentioned and it is clear that
the Christian guests feel passionately about the injustices meted out to
prisoners behind the walls and fences of NPS.
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Appendices
Appendix 6 - Ranking system and salary scale
Senior staff
CGP Controller General of Prisons Consolidated 98
DCG Deputy Controller General Consolidated
ACG Assistant Controller General 16
CP Controller of Prisons 15
DCP Deputy Controller of Prisons 14
ACP Assistant Controller of Prisons 13
CSP Chief Superintendent of Prisons 12
SP Superintendent of Prisons 11
DSP Deputy Superintendent of Prisons 10
ASP1 Assistant Superintendent of prisons 1 9
ASP2 Assistant Superintendent of Prisons 2 8
(Staff of rank ASP1 & ASP2 are the targets of the 6 month training at the staff college)
Subordinate staff
CIP Chief Inspector of Prisons 12
DCIP Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons 11
ACIP Assistant Inspector of Prisons 10
PIP Principal Inspector of Prisons 9
SIP Senior Inspector of Prisons 8
IP Inspector of Prisons 7
(Inspectors can take the 2 month inter-cadre course and move up to ASP2 if
pass. If fail move to SIP)
AIP Assistant Inspector of Prisons 6
SPA Senior Prison Assistant 5
PA1 Prison Assistant 1 4
PA2 Prison Assistant 2 3
PA3 Prison Assistant 3 2
98 “Consolidated” means the salary is not set.
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Appendix 7 - After care survey form
Appendices
Please complete the following survey and return to Andrew M.
Jefferson.
Responses will contribute to improving future training
Anonymous – no name required
Please indicate the type of station you will be returning to: Zonal HQ ( )
State HQ ( ) Prison yard ( )
You are to go back to your station as a “pioneer” after-care officer:
Write a few sentences about your hopes for your new role:
Write a few sentences about your fears for your new role:
Write a few sentences about how this course lived up to your expectations
and how you will practicalise it:
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