African Prisons Project — acknowledging the humanity, denouncing the injustice, seeing the potential.
Premila Sattianayagam, Associate of the April 2017 cohort in London, writes about her experience with African Prisons Project, which is her first placement, and her visit of prisons in Africa.
Acknowledging the humanity:
“If the world knew the thing about us we are most ashamed of, and that’s all that they knew, and that’s all that they were interested in, society would lose out……..we have much more to offer than the worst thing we’ve done.” Alexander McLean, Founder of African Prisons Project (APP)
When I was a kid, the above statement would not have resonated with me. I would have preferred “commit the crime, do the time.” Not that I came into this world a hardliner on ethics and morality (that would have been pretty insufferable), and not because I had a penchant for snappy catchphrases, but because I viewed life a little too simply.
Nowadays? Well, I have lived a little, and McLean’s words remind that we can stumble and fall just as easily as we can run. We make mistakes, poor decisions, we disappoint, misjudge, lie (a lot). As much as I could leverage an argument for accountability and retribution, I know what it is to be human. I also believe in second chances, if people are willing to acknowledge and change.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the above when I visited prisons in Kenya and Uganda with APP. What had been the journey of the inmates prior to and during incarceration? Why is there need for APP’s work?
Denouncing the injustice:
Looking at the stats, you know instantly things are just not right: 80–90% too poor to access legal representation; evidence of prisons being five times over-capacitated; 60% of prisoners held on remand for an average of three years. To me, it reads like the backdrop of a dystopian fiction.
Then you hear directly the inmates’ stories and the stories of their friends: a wife incarcerated for a crime committed by her husband; a young guy, keen to impress a girl with a fancy date he can not afford, hijacks a bus and is sentenced to life for ‘robbery with violence’; a mother, routinely and mercilessly beaten by her husband, imprisoned for his murder; a man sitting in court, clueless that his lawyer is pleading no contest on his behalf; another, forced to self-represent, not knowing his legal rights.
No doubt there are cases of criminality that cannot be explained away, but how can a justice system be allowed to be so unjust and disproportionate?
Then you enter prisons. You initially see inmates smiling, joking with prison officers, walking around the sunny outdoors with intent. But you are quickly informed by insiders that this masks the vulnerability of inmates, the pecking order in prisons, the degrading and punitive conditions.
During my time in Uganda, I was able to attend a church service in Luzira Maximum Security Prison. Those in attendance were on death row. Honestly, I was inspired. Their faith and musicality, their eloquence on the pulpit, their warm welcome to an outsider like myself. However, it was a hard experience. I had difficulty fathoming how the human spirit rides out that kind of condemnation.
Seeing the Potential:
APP’s work is a lifeline. They recognise that justice changemakers reside in prisons. APP’s delivery of different types of legal education and training to prisoners and prison staff, capitalises on the firsthand experiences of these uniquely placed and passionate individuals, and positions them to seek purpose in supporting themselves and their community.
Of all APP’s programming, I am quite taken with their human rights model. Selected prisoners and prison staff are trained to deliver legal awareness-raising sessions to the wider prison community, and to offer basic, legal assistance to pre-trial detainees, many of whom have not exercised their right to bail.
As a purpose-driven community (that’s what we are right?), we push ourselves to demonstrate low cost and high impact in what we do. The human rights model ticks all the boxes: legal empowerment at a very fundamental level, leading to life-changing outcomes (i.e. large numbers released).
APP’s vision going forward? A prison-based law college and law firm, whereby those from the margins of the society, who have been through the prison system, can meet the legal needs of those on the margins of society, through inexpensive, high quality services. No small feat, but even the prospect feels transformative. It is difficult not to be impressed by APP’s ambition.
