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Prisons, administrative detention centres and asylums are, by their very nature, authoritarian spaces that hold many citizens in captivity. In both democratic regimes and authoritarian states, prison order is one of discipline and coercion. In Global South countries such as the DRC and Nicaragua, which will be the focus of this conference, prison repression technologies are marked by colonial histories. They have played a key role in neutralising political opponents, spreading terror and preserving the power of autocrats. In this session of Debating Development, we will examine the contours of authoritarian prison governance in the DRC, Nicaragua and several other African and Latin American states. The session will present the state and non-state actors, legal and illegal policies, and punitive and non-punitive actions that underpin prison systems in authoritarian states in the Global South.
Julienne Weegels is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Amsterdam's Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), and co-organizer of the Global Prisons Research Network. Trained as an anthropologist, she works on incarceration and processes of state-(un)making in Central America, particularly as these pertain to the experience and politics of violence, power and dis/order. She has published numerous articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals and is the co-editor of Carceral Worlds: Legacies, Textures, Futures (2024, Bloomsbury Academic).
Denis Augustin Samnick is a research assistant at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp. He holds a Master's degree in Political Sociology from the University of Douala and a triple Erasmus Mundus Master's degree in Crises, Conflict and Civil Society, obtained simultaneously from the University of Lille, Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal and Babes Bolyai University in Romania. His doctoral research focuses on criminal policy and armed violence in Central Africa. His recent publications include: Samnick, D. A. (2025). Punitive adjustments at the Makala Central Prison in Kinshasa. Punishment & Society, 0(0) and Samnick, D. A. (2025). Public (In) action, Lived Experience of Juvenile Incarceration and Critical Reformism in Cameroonian Prisons. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.