CONCEPTS: UNDERSTANDING CULTURE IN PLACES OF DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY The ministry in charge of a place of detention will play a key role in determining its paradigm. Historically prisons in many countries were run by the Ministry of Defence, whose purpose is to protect the country from enemies of the state, and the Ministry of the Interior, responsible for policing and internal security. This supported the understanding that the purpose of prisons was to suppress political opposition or for the investigation of crime.8 Furthermore, the military culture of these ministries was commonly reflected in the structure, hierarchy, training programmes, employment conditions, mandate and self-image of staff in prisons under their responsibility. The civilian control9 of the Ministry of Justice is therefore considered to be more compatible with the rehabilitative aim of imprisonment and the need to ensure human rights of detainees. • The people: the attitudes and values that staff bring with them from their communities, backgrounds and experiences, as well as those they develop through their interactions during their work and with detainees. Institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), London. In 1999, an independent inquiry found that the MPS was institutionally racist. Its policies were not racist, but the majority of officers were white and the culture was therefore one of ‘white values and white beliefs’. Officers tended to interact with black people only in confrontational situations and thus formed negative stereotypes about this community. These became ‘rooted in the widely held attitudes, values and beliefs’ of the organisation through the canteen culture: the small talk between officers on the job. Racism thus became a norm of the occupational culture, which was ‘all-powerful in shaping officers’ views of a particular community’. This institutional racism also reflected racism in wider British society. Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Report of an Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, 1999, chapter 6. • Broader societal attitudes: Although places of detention seem completely cut off from the outside world, in reality they do not exist in a vacuum. Cultures within them are influenced by broader societal attitudes, including public opinion, media narratives and dominant beliefs in the wider institutional framework in which the deprivation of liberty takes place. For example, the levels of violence in prisons in many Latin American countries may be a reflection of the prevalence of violence in the societies in which they are located. In some contexts, police are expected to employ a certain level of violence towards criminal suspects and this is considered normal, both by the public and other criminal justice institutions. In order to understand the root of cultures in places of detention, monitoring bodies may therefore need to look outside the detaining organisation itself.10 People are central to the cultures formed in places of detention. But cultures also endure beyond individuals who come and go. They are perpetuated through symbols, stories, rituals and language, which link the organisation with its history and send a message about what is important.11 4. Deciphering culture within places of detention There are different levels of cultural attributes within organisations, some of which are readily observable and others which are less tangible.12 There may therefore be incongruence between outwardly professed values of a place of detention and how its culture develops in reality. Monitoring bodies will need to examine cultural attributes at all levels to fully understand the culture of a detaining organisation. Although these bodies will often have an intuitive feeling for what the culture is, it may be a challenge for them to stand back, assess it objectively and analyse it in a way that can be communicated. This can take time and regular engagement and therefore means that the culture of an institution cannot be assessed within a short visit. a.  Tangible cultural attributes:13 • ‘Artifacts’, such as the physical environment, the way people dress, organisational symbols and terminology, for example the difference between a ‘police force’ and a ‘police service’, hold meaning. These are visible and may be easy to observe but are normally harder to decipher. • Espoused beliefs and values, for example those found in written policies or articulated by staff. These may be found in documents such as, but not limited to: organisational vision and mission statements, human rights policies, oaths to be sworn by new recruits, codes of conduct and job descriptions, training materials, policy directives, for example on staff promotion, and contracts with private companies on the management of places of detention. 8. International Centre for Prison Studies, Guidance note 7, Moving Prisons to Civilian Control: Demilitarisation, 2004. 9. International standards emphasise that in order to secure ‘integrity, humanity, professional capacity and personal suitability’ in prison, personnel shall ‘have civil service status with security of tenure’. (Rule 74(3) of the revised Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules).) The Nelson Mandela Rules were adopted by the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice on 22 May 2015, endorsed by the Economic and Social Council on 9 September 2015, E/RES/2015/20 and adopted by UN General Assembly Third Committee on 5 November 2015, A/C.3/70/L.3 (At the time of printing this Resolution was pending adoption by the plenary of the UN General Assembly.) 10. Monitoring bodies should be aware, for example, that the situation faced by women in detention is often a reflection of wider prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory practices in society. 11. See G Johnson, K Scholes and R Whittington, Exploring Corporate Strategy, Pearson Education Limited, 8th ed, 2008, pp198-199. 12. E Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, Jossey-Bass, 3rd ed, 2004, pp25-37. 13. These levels of cultural attributes were identified by E Schein, ibid., pp25- 37. Penal Reform International | Institutional culture in detention: a framework for preventive monitoring |5