Somali piracy prisoners and biopolitical penal aid in East Africa

Abstract

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has elicited a growing body of interdisciplinary research. Much of this research focuses on identifying the root causes of piracy, analyzing onshore and offshore responses, or evaluating various rule-of-law approaches; no study has yet to examine how Somali piracy has impacted prisons. Drawing upon ethnographic research, this article explores how UNODC counter piracy funding is reshaping the carceral spaces of East Africa. I examine how the need to secure and develop Somali piracy prisoners in regional prisons has created a bodies-for-aid penal market in East Africa. Large aid packages are awarded to prisons that agree to accept suspected Somali pirates and ensure the support, maintenance, and enhancement of the lives of Somali piracy prisoners. I theorize a new form of penal aid—biopolitical penal aid—linking prison development funding to the containment of specific prisoner populations. Using the Montagne Posée Prison in the Seychelles as a case study, I explore how biopolitical penal aid is reshaping prison spaces and practices to tease out underlying tensions between international and regional security projects, how these projects are negotiated and appropriated at different scales, and how they are being experienced by staff and Somali piracy prisoners.

Keywords

biopolitics development East Africa penal aid prison Somali piracy

Introduction

In 2009, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Counter Piracy Programme (UNODC CPP, 2009) was created to establish a “regional piracy prosecution model” for East Africa in hopes of combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.¹ As of early 2015, approximately 272 Somali pirates have been tried, convicted, and imprisoned throughout the East Africa region as part of this model (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Maritime Crime Programme, 2014). Although numerous studies have examined how Somali piracy has reshaped regional rule of law systems, what has not been examined until now is how Somali piracy has reshaped the spaces and practices of various East African prisons. As part of its counter piracy programming, the UNODC has facilitated the refurbishment and construction of nine prisons throughout Somalia, Kenya, Seychelles, Maldives, and Mauritius (UNODC CPP, 2013). I explore how biopolitical penal aid is reshaping prison space and practice to tease out underlying tensions between international and regional security projects, how these projects are negotiated and appropriated at different scales, and how they are being experienced by staff and Somali piracy prisoners. I argue that these facilities are more than sites of detention and containment. Rather, they are dynamic spaces where a biopolitics of development links penal aid to the support, maintenance, and enhancement of Somali piracy prisoner lives.

An increasing interest among scholars in the practices of imprisonment and detention has contributed to a burgeoning, multi-disciplinary body of literature-labeled carceral studies. However, there is a small, yet growing body of prison scholarship focusing on penal institutions and practices in the global south (Birkbeck, 2011; Muller, 2012) and in Africa in particular (Bernault, 2003). Contemporary African prison scholarship explores prisons as complex, dynamic spaces that are made and remade through entanglements of power, identities, and discourse (Gear, 2014). Scholars examining the micro-dynamics of prison climate illustrate the nuances of guard-inmate relationships and prison governance structures (Jefferson and Martin, 2014). Research of the innovative ways that Rwandan prisoners navigate the challenges of prison life reveals a form of prisoner-run governance structure that operates alongside the official prison administration (Tertsakian, 2014). This form of “dual administration” was also present in an Ivory Coast case study conducted by Frederic Le Marcis (2014). Central to this growing body of literature is the call by Martin et al. (2014) for a truly representative, international penology that conceptualizes the prison “as is.” They propose achieving this through advocating ethnographic methods and introducing the very promising concept of “prison climate.” They define the prison climate as, “… a composite category, encompassing material conditions, values, relationships, and the political and moral economies—including the irrationalities—that sustain them” (p. 6).

This research contributes to and advances the study of African prisons in three ways. First, it seeks to fill a gap in the existing literature by exploring how a particular prisoner population—Somali piracy prisoners—has created a demand for prison refurbishment and expansion in East Africa. Second, it argues that this demand is reflective of a new form of penal aid—biopolitical penal aid. Specifically, it examines the role of geopolitical representations in constructing Somali piracy prisoners as precarious prisoners who are simultaneously feared and in demand. The perceived “risks” of accepting piracy prisoners are “rewarded” with large penal aid packages linked to the support, maintenance, and enhancement of their lives. Third, and taking cue from Martin et al., it utilizes ethnographic inquiry to theorize how biopolitical penal aid is (re)shaping prison climate by exploring how it is being appropriated by various actors in the material spaces and practices of the Montagne Posée Prison in the Seychelles.

The paper considers first the ways in which early expectations of Somali piracy prisoner behavior is rooted in broader, geopolitical representations of Somalis, Somalia, and maritime piracy. It then provides a discussion of African prisons and the concept of penal aid as a framework for analyzing changing prison space and practices in East Africa. Next, it presents an overview of the methodological approach and provides examples of piracy-related prison refurbishment and construction in Somalia, Kenya, and the Seychelles. Utilizing the Montagne Posée Prison case study, I argue that the changing prison spaces and practices demonstrate the emergence of a new form of biopolitical penal aid whereby prison reform funding is contingent upon the containment and maintenance of specific prisoner populations. Finally, the paper concludes with suggested potential avenues for future research at the intersection of security, development, and carceral studies.

Constructing criminals and prison spaces

Cultural criminologists have long examined the social construction of criminals. Representations of criminals have been analyzed as indicators of society’s economic and moral conditions (Cohen, 1972/2011), as practices of “othering” (Young, 1999), and as both a mobilizer and product of particular policing and penal responses (Drake, 2011). These scholars widely agree that representations impact the discourse about, perceptions of, and interactions with criminals. Dario Melossi (2000) further argues that representations are a product of particular contexts and environments and contribute to a broader, socially constructed “knowledge” of the criminal that does work in society. The following section identifies the characteristics associated with Somali pirates and situates them within their respective historical and political contexts in order to begin thinking through how these characteristics do work upon the spaces and practices of East African prisons.

Characterizing Somali pirates

Anthropologist Catherine Besteman (1996) cites the western media’s oversimplified coverage of the Somali civil war as one of the largest factors contributing to the othering of Somalia as an inherently violent place. Besteman criticizes the media for explaining the Somalia civil war as a product of deep ancestral hatred between warring clans while neglecting to examine the role of race, status, class, region, language, and international affairs in inflaming the conflict. Contrary to Besteman, world renowned anthropologist, Ian Lewis, argues that violence is part of the Somali culture. Lewis (1998) claims, “For better or for worse, violence is actually endemic in this pervasively bellicose culture …” (p. 100). He points to his own field observations, as well as historical evidence and records, as indicators that violence is a cornerstone of Somali values. Despite attempts to challenge this essentialized view of Somalis (Harper, 2012; Razack, 2004), Lewis’ research helped lend academic credibility to the popularized perception of Somalis as fundamentally violent people.

The perception of Somalis and Somalia as inherently violent, then, contributes to the characterization of Somali pirates as exceptionally violent criminals. As one World Bank (2013) study describes, “Twenty-first century piracy in this region [Horn of Africa] has developed as a violent criminal act, which not only affects the victims but also has an impact on the region and the global economy” (p. 1). This quote loosely suggests that piracy elsewhere is less violent than “this region,” or perhaps, not considered a violent act. However, research findings suggest that although Somali pirates threaten the use of violence more often than their counterparts in West Africa and South East Asia, they commit acts of violence less often than both groups (www.oceansbeyondpiracy.org). Despite evidence to the contrary, depicting Somali pirates as characteristically exceptionally violent seems to fit better with the longer historical geopolitical representations of Somalia and Somalis as dangerously underdeveloped subjects.² This characterization has not only solicited a historically unprecedented counter piracy military response, but it is also informing the modification of criminal justice facilities and practices (Collins, 2012; Gilmer, 2014, 2015).

African Prisons and Biopolitical Penal Aid

In line with a global trend of increasing rates of confinement, prison populations have risen in 71% of African countries over the past decade (Walmsley, 2013). However, imprisonment rates vary widely across the continent, and their reliability is often called into question. As scholars have argued elsewhere, many of the penal systems throughout Africa have been largely shaped by former colonial regimes (Bernault, 2007; Gillespie, 2008; Mbembe, 2003). Early on, colonial powers utilized imprisonment to control and quell populations that threatened the political status quo. The geographic context of this study, East Africa, has its own extensive history of colonialism and incarceration. Caroline Elkins (2005) has written extensively on the detention and brutalization of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Kikuyu during British colonial rule in Kenya. Stories of similar forms of secretive prison brutality carried out during the post-independence Moi era still circulate widely throughout Nairobi and beyond. Even today, it remains incredibly difficult to gain access to most prisons in Kenya.

The Republic of Seychelles is an archipelago located off the coast of East Africa. It has the highest prison population rate in the world at 868 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 2013). Similar to Kenya, the Seychelles’ carceral history is linked to British colonialism, but it also can be linked to French colonialism. Recognized in 1776 as a French colony, in the early 1800s, the French began using the Seychelles as a place to discard their unwanted. French prisoners exiled by Napoleon were sent to the islands and utilized as slave labor. Shortly after the British took control of the Seychelles in the early 1800s, they brought slaves liberated from Arab dhows to work on plantations as apprentices (Scarr, 2000). In 1903, the Seychelles became an official British colony. Like the French before them, the British utilized the Seychelles as a place to exile troublesome political prisoners from other states under their colonial rule such as Zanzibar, Egypt, Cyprus, and Palestine. In 1976, the Seychelles became an independent republic. However, the Seychelles continues to serve the international community as an island of detention, most recently through the on-going acceptance of Somali piracy prisoners (hereinafter referred to as piracy prisoners; see also Mountz, 2011).

Many African prisons struggle with issues of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Although these issues are not unique to Africa, in comparison to other regions, Africa has been slower to expand, renovate, or construct facilities in order to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners (Sarkin, 2008). The majority of African states do not have the resources needed and/or the desire to meet the basic demands of an increasing prison population. Often times, prisons and prison populations are selectively avoided or rendered invisible by the public and the powerful (Le Marcis, 2014). In Somalia, Kenya, and the Seychelles, members of the public mention avoiding prisons as a means to “not end up in one.” Similarly, many state leaders faced with other pressing issues such as poverty, famine, and conflict have chosen not to make prison reform a national priority.

As African states struggle to improve prison conditions, many international agencies have stepped in to monitor the health, human rights, and security situations of the prisons through personnel and funding support. This external support often promotes criminal justice reform as a mechanism for sustainable development, economic growth, and security. Kara Brisson-Boivin and Daniel O’Connor (2013) label this new type of international aid aimed at improving flawed penality—penal aid. They contend, “Penal aid connects flawed penalty with global security and attempts to solve these problems through the deployment of a particular kind of security-development penology” (p. 516). Through their research on UN-led penal aid programming in post-earthquake Haiti, they examine the political project of international governance at work in reconstructing justice systems in the global south. Drawing upon Foucault, they argue that we are witnessing the “birth of an international rule of law dispotif” that links state-making with the ability to “punish better.”

Brisson-Boivin and O’Connor’s work is a crucial starting point for theorizing the place and role of prisons within the contemporary security-development nexus. Mark Duffield (2010) argues that individual bodies and lives have become the focus of the contemporary development-security nexus. He argues, “In order to understand the nature and implications of the contemporary development-security nexus, development and underdevelopment are reconceived biopolitically” (p. 55). This biopolitical turn in aid policy no longer focuses on economic development and state security but instead focuses on human development and human security. Within this new liberal way of development, aid policy is designed to maintain life by meeting basic-needs and promoting self-reliance. Those who cannot maintain their own lives in an appropriate manner (e.g. through safe, legal means) are reimagined as both underdeveloped and dangerous. The biopolitics of development, then, seeks to simultaneously manage the maintenance of life and the risks posed by those lives. Thus, underdeveloped bodies, their perceived needs and risks, become inseparable from the geopolitical spaces they inhabit (Gregory, 2008). Duffield’s biopolitics of development is useful for expanding the concept of penal aid through its focus on the interconnectivity between maintaining and containing bodies that pose political risks. I aim to theorize and explore a form of biopolitical penal aid at work in particular East African prisons. The biopolitics of this form of penal aid identifies a particular set of prisoners as underdeveloped and dangerous, and targets them and the spaces they inhabit with penal investment. How the penal aid becomes appropriated in prison space and practice also reveals competing ideologies and interests at work in maintaining and containing piracy prisoners.

Methodological approach

This article is part of a larger research project examining the establishment, expansion, and impact of the UNODC regional piracy prosecution model in East Africa. Fieldwork was conducted from 2010 to 2013 in Kenya, Somalia, and the Seychelles. During this period, I worked as a graduate intern and a consultant for the UNODC CPP. My experiences working within the UNODC CPP office, and on their various projects throughout the region, enabled me to formulate a more nuanced understanding of Somali piracy and counter piracy approaches. Our office was tasked with managing the competing interests of donor countries and their respective naval operations, Somali government officials and their constituents, regional states and their judicial systems aiding in the detention, prosecution, and imprisonment of piracy prisoners, as well as piracy prisoners. As such, I was witness to, and in many cases party to, the political jockeying taking place between various actors. While I was a consultant, I undertook participant observation within the UNODC CPP office, attended several regional and international counter piracy conferences and meetings, and undertook various UN missions to Somalia, Kenya, and the Seychelles. During several of these missions, I spent time touring and observing staff and piracy prisoners within the following prisons: Hargiesa Prison, Somalia; Garowe Prison, Somalia; Bosasso Prison, Somalia; Nakuru Prison, Kenya; and Montagne Posée Prison, Seychelles.

In addition to participant observation, I conducted semi-structured interviews with government officials, prison management, and UN staff members working on piracy-related projects. I also conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with piracy prisoners detained in Montagne Posée Prison. These interviews were voluntary and asked respondents about their personal backgrounds and their perspectives on Somali piracy. Prisoners were made aware in advance that their participation in an interview would not affect the length of their sentences or their opportunities for repatriation. I acknowledge that my professional status as a UNODC CPP consultant may have created some bias during interviews. Whereas some respondents may have been hesitant to openly criticize the UN or UN-related programming during interviews, other respondents may have over-estimated my capacity to effect change in counter piracy policy and programming at the UN. The discussion that follows places short-term participant observations from prison visits in Kenya, Somalia, and Seychelles into broader understandings of Somali piracy and carceral spaces and practices in East Africa.

Pirates and prison reform in East Africa

The UNODC CPP was created in 2009 to support East African states with the prosecution and imprisonment of Somali pirates. The UNODC CPP-facilitated “regional piracy prosecution model” was designed as an interim strategy while various UN agencies helped improve Somalia’s criminal justice system. Counter piracy-related funding has contributed to the refurbishment and construction of courthouses, police stations, and criminal justice administration buildings throughout East Africa. However, the largest portion of funding has been invested in prison projects related to the incarceration of Somali pirates.

In 1955, the First United Nations Congress on the prevention of crime and the treatment of offenders adopted the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Although the document does not describe in detail a model penal system, it serves as a guideline for the creation and operation of humane and rights-based prisons worldwide. More recently, additional efforts to create a more Africa-specific set of prison standards is evidenced by the establishment of the following groups and policy recommendations: the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) (1986); the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa (1996); the Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention (est. 1997); and the Ouagadougou Declaration on Accelerating Penal and Prison Reform in Africa (2002). Several UNODC programme officers referenced the aforementioned documents, as well as the Special Advisor Report to the Secretary General (United Nations Security Council, 2010), as providing a basic guideline for piracy-related investment in East African prisons.³

How international prison standards became materialized in UNODC-supported prisons was a result of negotiations between UNODC CPP staff and government officials.⁴ In the simplest terms, the UNODC CPP programme manager refused to facilitate the transfer of piracy prisoners to any prison that was overcrowded, displayed unsanitary conditions, was unable to provide prisoners with clean drinking water and properly prepared food, or had poor ventilation. Initial prison assessments undertaken by UNODC CPP staff members indicated whether a prison could (and would) be refurbished to rectify the aforementioned conditions, or if the UNODC would have to construct a new cellblock or prison. Likewise, the UNODC CPP also insisted on placing “mentors” in prisons holding piracy prisoners to ensure that piracy prisoners were being properly fed, not being abused by prison staff, and not being released prior to the completion of their sentences.⁵

State officials also negotiated for various items or projects required to meet the “standards” needed to accept piracy prisoners. In many cases, state officials demanded new offices or office materials (e.g. computers, printers, and vehicles), citing them as necessary for carrying out their duties. Somaliland’s Minister of Justice refused to accept any additional repatriated piracy prisoners unless the UNODC built him a new Ministry of Justice Building; the new building was opened in 2014. Puntland Ministers required a new vehicle and new offices for prison management; the vehicle was delivered in 2013 and the offices are located in the new Garowe prison opened in 2014. The discourses of these negotiations reveal two different, yet equally important, conceptualizations of “standards.” Whereas the UNODC CPP conceptualizes “standards” in terms of the living conditions and treatment of prisoners, state officials conceptualize “standards” in terms of operational capacity and professional goals.

UNODC programming alone has provided an additional 1400 prison bed spaces in Somalia, Kenya, and the Seychelles (UNODC CPP, 2013).⁶ One of the most touted examples of prison infrastructure reform in East Africa is the construction of the Hargeisa Prison located in Somalia. Opened in 2011, the state-of-the-art facility drew global media attention for being the first prison built in Somalia in more than 50 years and as a symbol of the international community’s commitment to help Somalia combat piracy. In the neighboring Puntland region, the newly constructed Garowe Prison, Prison Headquarters, and Training Academy Building were opened in 2014. Referred to as the “new pirate prison,” the 500-bed prison compound “exceeds the security conditions of any institution of its type in the region” and is set to become the main detention facility for detaining piracy prisoners in Somalia (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2014). Other prisons undergoing refurbishment and/or construction are Bosasso Prison, Mandhera Prison, and Mogadishu Prison. In Kenya, UNODC has facilitated the extensive refurbishment of six prisons located in Mombasa, Manyani, Malindi, Kamiti, Naivasha, and Nakuru. The remaining sections focus on the largest piracy-related prison investment project outside of Somalia—the Montagne Posée Prison in the Seychelles.

Montagne Posée Prison and Somali piracy prisoners

In 2009, the Seychelles signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Union to accept any alleged Somali pirates for incarceration in the Montagne Posée Prison (hereinafter referred to as MPP) while on remand and post-conviction (European Union Committee, 2012). More piracy prisoners have been held at MPP at one time than any other prison in the world, including prisons in Somalia. Within the past two years, 114 of the MPP piracy prisoners have been repatriated to Somalia. As of March 2015, 33 piracy prisoners are still being held in the MPP (Uranie, 2015). The MPP consists of six buildings. The construction of the newest building, the Secure Incarceration Unit (SIU), was funded by UNODC. The layout of the SIU was designed in 2010 during the nascent period of incarcerating Somali pirates in the East African region. At the time, little was known about their behavior inside foreign prisons. Erring on the side of caution, and in line with popular understandings of Somali pirates, the 60-bed SIU was designed as a maximum-security unit with security features for accommodating high-risk prisoners. This design was considered to be “appropriate for the climate, the prisoner profile and the needs of Seychelles” (UNODC CPP, 2011b, emphasis added).

The piracy prisoners began arriving at MPP prior to the completion of the SIU. As an interim strategy, they were housed in the main cellblock. When the construction of the SIU was finally completed in 2011, piracy prisoners already accounted for almost 20% of the prison population (UNODC CPP, 2011b). By this time, it had already become apparent to prison management that as a specific group of prisoners, piracy prisoners had integrated into the prison population with little incident. Any initial concerns about their presumably inherent violent tendencies did not manifest beyond that what might be expected within a stable prison environment. Rather, the piracy prisoners formed friendships with the Seychellois prisoners and were granted the same freedoms of mobility as the other prisoners.

The piracy prisoners’ behavior in the main cellblock quickly nullified the need for the extra physical security measures of the SIU. Maxim Tirent, former MPP Director, states, “When they [Somali pirates] are at sea, they are fearless and arrogant, but here they behave well. They are submissive and quiet. They spend their days working to fix the streets, or praying. They’ve never caused any troubles” (Colonnello, 2012). This statement does two things. First, it presupposes how Somali pirates behave while they are at sea—they are fearless and arrogant. Second, this presupposition is then put in tension with how they behave in prison. By juxtaposing their risky past, outside behavior with their “submissive,” “quiet,” and “productive” current, inside behavior, the former Director is simultaneously reinforcing the geopolitical representation of Somali pirates while also suggesting that the prison environment is contributing to, or perhaps solely responsible for, their good behavior. As such, the spaces of confinement are understood as complicit in the creation of “docile” bodies (Foucault 1977) or “bare life” (Agamben, 1998).

The function of the SIU has since shifted away from a maximum-security unit for the containment of piracy prisoners to a resource that gives the prison extra capacity to better manage its overall prisoner population. The MPP operates a “section leader” system for the daily management of the prisoner population. This system uses section leaders to pass important information from the prison management and staff through to the larger groups of prisoners held in each section. Similarly, the section leaders pass issues and concerns from within the prison community up to prison staff and management. The section leaders are voted for by hidden ballot and then approved by senior management. The prison also runs a small prison council made up of prisoners elected by the entire prison population. The prison council meetings allow council members an opportunity to raise concerns about the strategic and operational development of the prison and to offer suggestions on how to improve the overall prison environment.

As the Somali piracy prisoners became integrated into prison space, they also became integrated into the prisoner management system. Each cell containing piracy prisoners consisted of a group of pirates who were arrested at sea together and subsequently prosecuted together. As such, each piracy prisoner cell replicates a skiff⁷—both in group membership and leadership structure. On the high seas each skiff had its own captain who oversaw the piracy mission and managed the other pirates. Prison management discovered that the piracy prisoners’ respect for this hierarchical structure stretched beyond the high seas and into daily life within the prison. As such, they decided to incorporate this leadership structure into their section leader system by officially recognizing the skiff captains as section captains. There is also a designated “captain of captains” (hereinafter referred to as CoC) that serves as the representative of the entire piracy prisoner population. This individual is considered the highest-ranking Somali among all of the captains. Generally speaking, he is the eldest and from the largest clan represented. The CoC has a seat on the prison council and also attends management meetings specific to the Somali prisoners’ living community.

During my initial encounter with the CoC, I quickly observed the power he had over the other piracy prisoners. It occurred at the end of my first day interviewing piracy prisoners while the Somali interpreter and I were standing outside of the SIU. Three Somali piracy prisoners were next to us talking and laughing with one another. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a tall, thin Somali man walking in our direction. He was noticeably older than the piracy prisoners I had spent the day interviewing. His hair was completely gray and even from a distance you could see the deep wrinkles on his face. He stopped about ten feet from us and stood motionless, his eyes were fixed on the piracy prisoners. A brief moment passed before they noticed they were being watched. Upon seeing him, they immediately stopped laughing, averted their gazes to the ground, and slowly separated from one another. As if satisfied with their reaction, the old man turned and walked back in the direction he came from. Just then, one of the prison managers arrived. He glanced at the old man walking away and then turns to me chuckling, “I see you’ve met the big captain [CoC].”

One prison manager cited only one instance where the CoC was challenged for his position. This occurred when a small group of piracy prisoners temporarily housed in the SIU was relocated into the main cellblock. Within a few days, several piracy prisoners approached him saying they wanted to elect the captain of the newly transferred group as the CoC. The prison manager recalls the experience;

I told them that it was not going to happen, and if they were stirring up trouble between the groups I would separate them from the other piracy prisoners. They went directly to the CoC and apologized for talking to me about overthrowing him. I sense there’s a general fear amongst them about being separated from their skiff sections and the other piracy prisoners. They would rather abide by our system and resolve inter-clan disputes than face being separated from the other Somalis.

The decision of the prison management to incorporate the skiff-based leadership structure into the section leader system reveals how the formal category of “Somali piracy prisoners” is working within the production of the carceral order. Prison management learned early on that by formally recognizing the skiff groups as sections, they could harness the influence and power of the captains to minimize unrest among the general piracy prisoners population. Marie Morelle’s (2014) research conducted in the central prison in Yaounde, Cameroon found similar evidence of power dynamics and social statuses constructed outside of prisons being reproduced within prisons through both formal and informal arrangements. One strategy the Somali piracy prisoners employed to gain power outside of the formal carceral order was to volunteer for interviews with UN staff members and/or the media. They used these interviews as platforms for making requests for goods and services as well as professing their innocence. During one interview, a Somali piracy prisoner told me he had no intentions of answering my questions, but he came to ask me for some milk and to use my laptop to Facebook his friends back home. Other UN staff members recalled similar interview experiences.

As the number of interviews with piracy prisoners increased, the number of NGOs requesting information from UNODC CPP about the treatment and conditions of piracy prisoners also increased. In addition to referring the NGOs to the respective prison directors for more information, the UNODC CPP increased the number and frequency of welfare goods (e.g. toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, etc.) being sent to the piracy prisoners, and conversations about “rehabilitation” began circulating throughout the office. The notion of rehabilitating piracy prisoners was not one of the initial mandates of the UNODC CPP. Rather, early discourse of rehabilitation appeared in UNODC CPP (2011a) brochures in reference to teaching piracy prisoners in Kenyan prisons about the criminal justice process and providing them with English language instruction.

Around this time, rehabilitation was also on the minds of MPP prison management. While being taken on a tour of the MPP compound, I asked one prison manager if he thought most of the piracy prisoners would return to piracy when they were done with their sentences. He said he hoped not. He expressed frustration knowing that the piracy prisoners would be going right back to the same lawless, economically bleak situation that drove them to piracy in the first place. Instead, he wanted to work to rehabilitate them before sending them back to Somalia. He discussed:

If they [Somali piracy prisoners] know how to speak English, then maybe they can be hired by one of the international NGOs working in Somalia. What they don’t need is to be sent back to Somalia with skills for jobs that aren’t available. They want to be productive citizens. Just like most prisoners, one day they will be released back into society. Prisons need to help ease that transition and prepare them for life after prison. We need to teach them how to make it on their own.

This vision for rehabilitating piracy prisoners reflects Duffield’s theory of the biopolitics of development in that the Somali language and skills they currently possess are understood as contributing to the constitution of their underdeveloped, dangerous bodies, and unacceptable form of self-reliance (i.e. piracy). Therefore, by providing English lessons and teaching skills for [acceptable] jobs that are available in Somalia, the prison was seen to be rehabilitating piracy prisoners to “make it on their own”. The prison manager believed that all prisons, including the MPP, should provide rehabilitation services. He regularly requested funding support from the UNODC CPP specifically for piracy prisoner rehabilitation programming.

The UNODC CPP was receiving questions, comments, and concerns about rehabilitating piracy prisoners from all directions—the media, NGOs, prison management, state officials, donors, and other agencies within the UN. With new incidents of piracy off the coast of Somalia at an all time low, and more than 200 piracy prisoners still serving out their sentences in the East Africa region, the UNODC CPP programme manager recognized the opportunity to expand the programme’s mandate to officially include the rehabilitation of piracy prisoners. Although the specific goals and programming involved in rehabilitation were left up to the prison management (and UNODC mentors where applicable) of each respective prison, the UNODC CPP began providing rehabilitation-related funding and logistical support.

Rehabilitation programming in the MPP was greatly shaped by the highest-ranking prison manager. Two main rehabilitation projects conceived of (with the input of piracy prisoners) were an exercise yard and an expansion of the kitchen and fish preparation area. The exercise yard was aimed at providing a space for prisoners to socialize with one another and prison staff. From the perspective of prison management, the space would contribute to the social reintegration of piracy prisoners. The second project, the kitchen and fish preparation center, was designed to improve overall food hygiene conditions while also teaching culinary skills. Prison management viewed the project as helping the piracy prisoners learn to cook for themselves (despite food preparation being considered a woman’s job in Somali culture). Similar to the MPP, other prisons are now implementing the dual rehabilitation approach of vocational training and recreation that is being heralded in the “correctional component” of the UNODC Piracy Prisoner Transfer Programme. Piracy prisoners in Hargeisa prison are learning brick-making skills while also participating in basketball games. Likewise, piracy prisoners in Garowe prison can be part of a prison soccer league while also learning sewing, construction and carpentry skills.

Discussion: Peculiar prisoners and new prison markets

The creation of a regional model for prosecuting pirates has spurred an East Africa prison boom centered around refurbishing old and constructing new prison spaces willing to accept suspected Somali pirates. The large amount of counter piracy-related penal aid devoted to the containment and maintenance of Somali piracy prisoners reveals the peculiar status of these inmates. Informed by popular understandings of Somali pirates as exceptionally violent, Somali piracy prisoners were expected to pose a security threat to those within (and outside of) prison walls. This understanding is discursively inseparable from geopolitical representations of Somalia and Somalis as inherently violent and bellicose. Consequently, those willing to accept these high-risk individuals also expect to receive high rewards. States agreeing to accept the transfer of suspected Somali pirates and piracy prisoners received large amounts of penal aid in the form of infrastructure refurbishment/construction, personnel training, welfare packages, and other items resulting from negotiations.

The UNODC counter piracy-related prison investment operating in tandem with the regional model for prosecuting pirates can best be described as a form of biopolitical penal aid that links funds to a specific prisoner population. The movement of and receipt of this aid is contingent upon the movement of and receipt of these prisoners. As such, the penal aid is temporally and geographically fixed to the location of bodies. This deviates from traditional understandings of penal aid aimed at the restructuring of “failed” penal justice institutions in order to facilitate broad, long-term prison reform (Brisson-Boivin and O’Connor, 2013). Rather, biopolitical penal aid is aimed at short-term, incremental reform to ensure the support, maintenance, and enhancement of the lives of a specific prisoner population.

International efforts to prosecute and imprison Somali pirates in the East Africa region have created a demand for prisons that meet “international prison standards.” What these standards are and how they are materialized in prison space and practice is the product of negotiations between UNODC programme managers, state officials, prison management, and even Somali piracy prisoners. In the Montagne Posée Prison case study, once the piracy prisoners began arriving at the prison, it quickly became apparent that the extra security measures were not needed. Rather than negatively impacting the prison climate, the piracy prisoners integrated well into the general prison population, formed friendships with the local prisoners, and were formally recognized as a category within the existing prisoner management system. The expansion of the UNODC CPP mandate to include piracy prisoner rehabilitation programming helped bring additional funding and subsequent changes to the material conditions of the prison. The new exercise yard, expanded kitchen, and introduction of culinary training, although aimed at rehabilitating piracy prisoners, are available for use by all prisoners. The changing prison spaces and practices are reflective of a biopolitics of [penal] development that makes underdeveloped, dangerous bodies inseparable from their geopolitical context. Thus, securing and developing (i.e., rehabilitating) the violent Somali pirate becomes a regional, and arguably international priority that is carried out at the local level in prisons.

The piracy-related prison boom has also triggered a bodies-for-aid penal market in the East Africa region. Regional states recognize that there is a large amount of funding available for those willing to accept suspected Somali pirates into their prisons. However, the existence and continuation of the bodies-for-aid penal market in East Africa depends upon several key factors. First, it depends upon the continuation of Somali piracy. Without Somali piracy arrests and prosecutions there is no bio to drive biopolitical penal aid. In the absence of suspected piracy prisoners, the bodies-for-aid penal market can only continue if a new prisoner population is identified as a containment and maintenance priority (e.g. terrorists, drug-traffickers, etc.). Second, Somalia’s prisons must be unable to accept new piracy prisoners. The need to contain Somali piracy prisoners in regional prisons as an interim strategy will continue to depend upon the state of Somalia’s prisons and their prison capacity. Lastly, counter piracy stakeholders must continue to classify Somali piracy prisoners as high-risk in order to justify the ongoing investment of large sums of money into prison reforms in East Africa. Likewise, it is also in the best interest of regional states to promote this classification as a tool for negotiating the receipt of large(r) penal aid packages in exchange for accepting suspected Somali pirates.

As the bodies-for-aid penal market continues to facilitate the transfer of bodies and funds, the East African penal landscape is being reshaped to reflect the prioritization of combating maritime piracy and securing Somali piracy prisoners over other crimes and groups of offenders. This prioritization demonstrates how the materialization of these international and regional security projects are negotiated and contested at the local scale. Whereas crime is often framed as a socially destructive behavior, this case study reveals that Somali piracy has also been constructive in that it is inadvertently contributing to the refurbishment and expansion of prisons throughout East Africa. Future research needs to further theorize the relationship between geopolitical representations, development, and the political economy of prisons to examine the role of intergovernmental agencies in reshaping prison spaces and practices in other locations. It is also imperative to better understand how changes to carceral spaces and practices are being negotiated and/or contested at the local level by prison staff and prisoners.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

Brittany V Gilmer is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Florida International University. She has conducted research on maritime crime and security in Somalia, Kenya, and the Seychelles. Her book, Political Geographies of Piracy: Constructing Threats and Containing Bodies in Somalia (Palgrave, 2014), examines the newly emergent ad hoc institutional arrangement for preventing and combating piracy off the coast of Somalia. Her current work explores the role of non-state actors and intergovernmental organizations in constructing understandings of particular crimes/criminals and shaping criminal justice reform in sub-Saharan Africa.

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