Paper short abstract:

This paper develops criminological studies of ‘penal humanitarianism’ (Bosworth, 2017; Lohne, 2019) by tracing its imperial roots and legacies. It critiques the relationship between humanitarian sentiment, penality and colonial violence through analysing penal reform in 1930-70s Ghana and Kenya.

Paper long abstract:

This exploratory paper analyses the imperial and colonial roots and legacies of penal humanitarianism, sketching its historical genealogy in the late colonial and decolonization era. It develops the contemporary concept of ‘penal humanitarianism’ (Bosworth, 2017; Lohne, 2019) from the emergent criminology of humanitarianism literature (Kendall and Nouwen, 2020), refining this through the use history of crime, African penal histories and humanitarian history approaches. Penal humanitarianism analyses the intersections between humanitarian reason and penal governance, focusing particularly on how humanitarian rationales increase beyond the nation-state. This paper looks at colonial developments in penal humanitarianism in Africa, critiquing the relationship between ‘civilizing’ governance, ‘welfarist’ penal reform, ‘rehabilitation’ programming, and humanitarian sentiment in the treatment of offenders. It takes the treatment of death row inmates, juvenile delinquency and prison labour in Ghana and Kenya between 1920-70s as key case studies. It explores how penal humanitarianism operated in (trans-)imperial and African colonial contexts, and highlights the influence of humanitarian actors/organizations in colonial penality. It thereby analyses the limitations of penal humanitarianism in colonial contexts, and tensions between local and international understandings of effective penal reform. The paper argues that penal humanitarianism should be understood in practice as well as policy, and that human rights and humanitarianism should be disaggregated in its critique of criminal justice. The paper is based on capital case files and juvenile offender records from Nairobi and Accra, CO/FCO treatment of offenders and penal welfare files, ICRC prison visits records, and IPPC/UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice records.