Conjugal Visits in Prisons Discourse: The Prisoners’ Voice in Malawi

Abstract

The issue of possible provision of prisoners’ conjugal rights in jurisdictions not yet allowing them, such as Malawi, is still an intricate debate amongst the stakeholders. However, the most important stakeholder in the issue, the prisoner, is usually left out of the discourse. This study analyzed the perceptions of randomly sampled 305 prisoners on conjugal visits at one of the central prisons in Malawi. Both qualitative and quantitative data from prisoners’ perceptions were collected and used concurrently. The key finding was that prisoners (male and female) in Malawi generally had positive perceptions regarding conjugal visits since more than 80% of the respondents (n=305) reported that conjugal visits were good and recommended their possible introduction in Malawi. These incarcerated persons opined that conjugal visits reduced problems of homosexuality, sexual assaults, physical violence in prisons, supporting prisoners’ rehabilitation and reintegration efforts as well as helping prisoners in preserving and establishing family ties. Prisoners also viewed conjugal visits as another way of dealing with the HIV and AIDS problem in Malawi prisons. Though the potential challenge was reported to be its costs, it was opined that the programme was still worthy of introducing. It was therefore concluded that the prisoners’ voice is also valuable in not only conjugal visits discourse but also in all issues related to law and policy that concern them.

Why Not Us? Experiences of Incarcerated Women on Education Access in Malawi Prisons

“…The inadequacy of resources finding concurs with previous studies conducted in many countries including Malawi (e.g. Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022;Kajawo, 2019;Kajawo & Johnson, 2023a;2023b;Johnson, 2015;Korzh, 2021). Kajawo and Nyirongo (2022), based on their study conducted at 17 correctional facilities in Malawi, revealed that education was faced with several problems, including shortages of proper classrooms, libraries, laboratories and adequate learning materials such as notebooks, prescribed textbooks and pens.…”

“…Consequently, studies report that education opportunities were accessible to inmates at various prison facilities in Malawi (Kajawo, 2019;2022;Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022;Kajawo & Johnson, 2023a;2023b). In 2020, there were 15 prison facilities offering educational programmes out of 30 in the country (Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022).…”

“…;Vol. 13, Issue 1, pp: 25-39, 2024 programmes in 2018; in a population where more than 90% did not reach or complete secondary school education level (Kajawo, 2019;Kajawo & Nyirongo, 2022;Kajawo & Johnson, 2023b). This could be worse when considering the education access of incarcerated women offenders who are usually educationally disadvantaged (Huber, 2015;Korzh, 2021;Ryder, 2020).…”

“…Notwithstanding an extensive body of research on education in correctional facilities worldwide, there are still gaps in the literature on incarcerated women's access to education in correctional facilities, especially in African countries. As observed by Chigwada in 1989 regarding research on the educational experiences of black people, most African studies focus on the whole prison population or only male offenders (Vandala, 2019;Kajawo, 2019;Kajawo & Johnson, 2023a); and a few specifically on female offenders (Allen & Overy, 2019;Dastile & Agozino, 2019;Johnson, 2015). Gunnison et al (2017) argue that data on incarcerated female young offenders is limited partly due to the researchers' failure to report disaggregated data by gender.…”