Somali piracy prisoners and biopolitical penal aid in East Africa
| Author | Brittany V Gilmer |
| Published date | 01 January 2017 |
| Date | 01 January 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474516654730 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
2017, Vol. 19(1) 115–131
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474516654730
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Article
Somali piracy prisoners
and biopolitical penal
aid in East Africa
Brittany V Gilmer
Florida International University, USA
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 pack-
ages 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 Pose
´e 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 pros-
ecution model’’ for East Africa in hopes of combating piracy off the coast of
Corresponding author:
Brittany V Gilmer, Department of Criminal Justice, Florida International University, 11200 S.W. 8th Street,
Miami, FL 33199, USA.
Email: bgilmer@fiu.edu
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 refurbish-
ment 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 develop-
ment 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 schol-
arship 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 nuan-
ces 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 concep-
tualizes the prison ‘‘as is.’’ They propose achieving this through advocating ethno-
graphic 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
116 Punishment & Society 19(1)
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