Managing drugs in the prisoner society: heroin and social order in Kyrgyzstan’s prisons
| Author | Gavin Slade,Lyuba Azbel |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474520956280 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Managing drugs in the
prisoner society: heroin
and social order in
Kyrgyzstan’s prisons
Gavin Slade
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Lyuba Azbel
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Abstract
Through the case study of Kyrgyzstan this paper argues that a rapidly increasing
availability of drugs in prison is not necessarily deleterious to solidarity and inmate
codes. Instead, the fragmentary effect of drugs depends on the forms of prisoner
control over drug sale and use. In Kyrgyzstan, prisoners co-opted heroin and reor-
ganized its distribution and consumption through non-market mechanisms.
State provision of opioid maintenance therapy incentivized powerful prisoners to
move to distributing heroin through a mutual aid fund and according to need.
Collectivist prison accommodation, high levels of prisoner mobility and monitoring
within and across prisons enabled prisoners to enforce informal bans on drug
dealing and on gang formation outside of traditional hierarchies. We argue that in
these conditions prisoners organized as consumption-oriented budgetary units
rather than profit-driven gangs.
Keywords
drugs, gangs, governance, heroin, post-Soviet, prisoner, social cohesion
Corresponding author:
Gavin Slade, Nazarbayev University, 53 Kabanbay Batry, Nur-Sultan 01000, Kazakhstan.
Email: gavin.slade@nu.edu.kz
Punishment & Society
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474520956280
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2022, Vol. 24(1) 26–45
Introduction
What impact does a rapid increase in the availability of illegal drugs in prison have
on prisoner society? Penological studies attest to drugs’ disruption to social cohe-
sion, their role in the rise of gangs, decline in trust and prisoner solidarity, as well
as a cause of violent conflict (Akers et al., 1974; Crewe, 2005; Edgar et al., 2003;
Skarbek, 2014; Trammell, 2009). This article presents a case that deviates from
these findings. Based on fieldwork in the Kyrgyz Republic, hereafter Kyrgyzstan,
formerly part of the Soviet Union, the paper finds that prisoners were able to limit
market competition for drugs by centralizing heroin distribution and collectively
organizing its consumption. Thus, the paper argues that the deleterious impact of
drugs on the cohesion of prisoner society is not a given; instead, the fragmentary
effect of drugs is relative to the form of control over both drug markets and drug
use established collectively by prisoners (Kalinich and Stojkovich, 1985).
Kyrgyzstan is a critical case study to demonstrate this thesis. Firstly, it is situated
on the heroin route north of Afghanistan. As such, it has experienced a sharp
increase in heroin use since the collapse of the Soviet Union both outside and
inside prison. Secondly, as a post-Soviet republic, its prisons, known colloquially
as colonies, were part of the Soviet system of punishment that developed resilient
formal and informal institutions of prisoner governance (Cowley et al., 2015;
Kupatadze, 2014b; Rhodes et al., 2019).
The paper does not claim that any specific legacy of the Soviet penal system
directly impacted on prisoner control of drug distribution and consumption.
However, in conclusion, we argue that certain conditions, pertaining in
Kyrgyzstan today, affect how drugs are managed by prisoners within prison.
Two such conditions are first, the collectivist forms of prison life that were devel-
oped in Soviet times but have since intensified and second, the low level of staffing,
resourcing and corruption within the system. These conditions enabled specific
informal practices of information flow and social control to flourish. While these
conditions can be found in many prison systems in the former Soviet Union and
around the world, a third more unusual condition concerns the introduction of
methadone treatment into Kyrgyz prisons. The introduction of state-led not-for-
profit methadone distribution shifted the incentives of powerful prisoner groups
towards maintaining their position as guarantors of informal order rather than
expanding their drug market share.
The article will first review the literature concerning the effect of drug markets
on prisoner society. Then the paper introduces the case of Kyrgyzstan and the data
collection methods used in the study. The paper utilizes interview data to show
how informal practices and norms enabled prisoners to diminish the deleterious
effects of drugs on health and social cohesion. An analysis of these practices and
norms explains how, in Kyrgyzstan, rival prison gangs, competing to sell on or
govern drug markets, did not emerge. Instead, traditional prisoner hierarchies
centralized drug distribution and oriented themselves to organizing drug consump-
tion rather than increasing profits through expanding the market for heroin.
27
Slade and Azbel
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