Implementing Human Rights in Ugandan Prisons

project summary

A key initiative to address the challenges currently facing the Ugandan Prisons Service - challenges it shares with many penal systems across post-colonial Africa - has been the development of a new prison act, passed in April 2006. The Prison Act represents a milestone in prison reform in Uganda. It offers a modernized legal framework for imprisonment, embeds human rights in penal policy, establishes prisoners' rights and strengthens the management Uganda Prisons Service (UPS) e.g. by providing it with the responsibility of former local administration prisons. The task now facing the UPS is to translate the law into practice. The study will analyze how the new, rights-based prison law is implemented as prison officials interpret and put the new Prison Act into practice with special focus on the reform of disciplinary measures. The study will offer an institutional and actor-oriented analysis of prison reform processes in Uganda and offer insights about the challenges and dynamics related to the implementation of a rights-based prison law. The study will be based on 10 month's fieldwork in Uganda. A state and a district prison in Central Region will be the main field sites. Mapping of the institutional structure with special focus on disciplinary measures, key informant interviews with prison managers in the translation of law into practice. The study will contribute to the growing empirical research into the under-studied field of prison reform and prison practice in the South and offer a research-based contribution to justice sector reform policies and strategies aimed to promote and protect human rights in prisons in Uganda and in post-colonial Africa in general.