Odemira is a town on Portugalâs southwestern region, known as Alentejo , situated in a lush valley with a river running through it. Its population of approximately 3000 inhabitants lives far from any major urban center, just outside the radius of one of the countryâs most popular touristic areas on the Atlantic coast. It is a typical Alentejo town, for the better and for the worse: the natural and urban beauty of its whitewashed houses spraying down the sides of an almost untouched valley; the peacefulness of rural life somehow offset by the demographic desertification that afflicts this part of the country, slowly destroying local commerce, services and communication. Odemira Regional Prison Facility,1 a prison for women with a population of approximately 50 inmates, stands on one of these hillsides. Being the only female prison facility in the whole of Portugalâs southern region, which occupies approximately 400 square kilometers, most of its population is comprised of women from that area, allocated there either on remand or as convicted felons.
I came across this prison almost by chance at the end of 2015, when working on a broader research project2 started almost two years before in 10 prison facilities all over the country (out of the 49 currently operating). In the course of this work, I had visited the oldest and largest central prison for women (Tires prison facility, nearby Lisbon, the countryâs capital) and was thinking of including the other major female prison (Santa Cruz do Bispo Female Prison, in the Northern region of Oporto) which had opened in 2005 and was reputed for its âexcellent material conditionsâ. However, a colleague who worked in the prison services suggested that I visit Odemira instead. In his opinion, the fact that this was a modest-sized prison far away from major cities, would make authorizations and scheduling with its directing board an easier affair, thus enabling me to start work much faster.
It seemed like an interesting option for a number of reasons. Experience had already shown that even with an authorization from the Directorate-General of Prison Services, directing boards tended to limit internally the access of academics doing research on prison environments. Prisons closer to urban centersâand therefore closer to universitiesâwere naturally more sought out by students and researchers, which meant a greater probability of being put on a âwaiting listâ for long periods of time. Odemiraâs geographic situation presented an obstacle for academics without the financial means and time to conduct research that involved long stays in a remote location (such as students completing their bachelor studies). In addition, it would also present a great opportunity to engage with the inmate population from a part of the country I largely ignored, and which remained generally rather unexplored by Portuguese prison studies literature.
Several months before my first visit to Odemira, one of my students, who worked for the Directorate-General of Prison Services, and who was acquainted with my broad research in prison settings, told me: âCompared with the places you have visited so far, you will find this more like a little dollâs house. Itâs very small and it has almost as many guards as inmates!â This comment echoed enticingly. After so many months working in overcrowded, oversized and harsh environments, prisons with capability for up to 1200 inmates, the idea of finding a more proximate scenery pushed me to make the decision. On the other hand, and even if somehow strange, the image of a âdollâs houseâ, of an environment where everyone knew each other, made me think that perhaps this was the opportunity to try to overcome some of methodological and bureaucratic constraints I had almost invariably stumbled upon in the other prison facilities.
Throughout the years of research in prisons, I had found many frustrations in the process of establishing relationships with inmates, guards and other correctional treatment staff. The most relevant was related to the short staffing of prison officers, which invariably conducted to limited time and restraint access to certain prison areas. For example, on the initial applications for authorization one is requested to specify the exact number of inmates, guards and staff intended to be interviewed, with pre-defined criteria such as crime and conviction categories, nationalities and origin, etc. It was also need to define exactly the duration of fieldworkâone day, one week, one month?
While this information allowed prison services to schedule and manage the requests from academics, the idea of âhanging aroundâ, engaging in informal conversation, allowing chance and circumstance to dictate the direction of my investigation (a modus operandi which is so dear to the ethnographical method ) were completely out of the question. And this was pronounced when it came to restricted areas, and namely those spacesâsuch as cellblocks or wingsâwhere it would precisely be possible to practice such methods, following inmates and officers in their everyday life. Therefore, whereas administrative areas were easy to access and circulate without major restrictionsânotwithstanding the awkwardness and suspicion aroused among staff members by having a stranger walking around apparently âdoing nothingââpermanence in areas restricted to inmates was strongly conditioned, and strictly forbidden in the case of male prisons. In such places, access is restricted even to female staff working there on a daily basis as teachers, nurses, and lawyers, and including female prison officers. Thus, âfor reasons of securityâ, mostly connected with overcrowding and short-staffed prisons, it was impossible to guarantee the protection of outside visitors.
The hundreds of hours of conversations I maintained with inmates, guards and correctional treatment staff in such establishments were mostly held in the same rooms where inmates usually met with their attorneys, were presented to their sentencing judges, parole hearings, or received their weekly visits, under conditions which Drake, Earle and Sloan define as âinterview-based research methodologies that tend to be episodic, short-lived and often take place outside of spaces the informant routinely occupiesâ (2015: 3). This is not to say that such methodology lacked validityâfar from it. The conversations a researcher can hold in this kind of neutral space, isolated from the usual setting the inmate spends his/her day, can promote moments of an almost confessional nature, harder to obtain when the individuals find themselves in their everyday surroundings. Nevertheless, I was well aware that such confessional spaces isolated certain variables, which could only be properly relativized and contrasted with a follow-up in a more quotidian environment.
In other words, the persona emerging in a compact room, after the door was closed and a one-to-one interaction was engaged, was not the same as the one habitually interacting with guards and fellow prisoners outside of it. The atmosphere, rhythms and demands differ drastically in either space. Leaving, if only momentarily, the space of forced co-habitation, strict rules and limited autonomy they had come to know, also presented a source of tension and emotional conflict.3
In practice, besides a few guided tours around the cellblocks, refectories, classrooms, workshops, and courtyards, during those almost three years of prison research I had gained a very limited experience of inmatesâ living spaces. Even when working at Tires, where my presence (as a woman) would supposedly be less conspicuous or intrusive, the overcrowding and shortage of staff restricted my movements to a small unit separated from the main blocks where most inmates were held. From this limited experience in these environments, I was impressed especially by the noises, which provided a kind of prison soundtrack made up of constant chatterâand sometimes shoutingâthe jangling of guardsâ key chains, the clanking of bolts being turned and gates being closed, telephones ringing, metal detectors beeping, and the general humming noise produced by the hundreds of people sharing the same confined space.4
Odemira prison was a far cry from the scenario just described. Therefore, what started as a short visit programmed to last two weeks, ended up turning into an intensive and immersive experience lasting a whole year. The decision for this extension was not immediate and resulted from a number of converging factors. As explained in Chap. 3, after the first few days at Odemira (during which I followed my previous method of individual interviews in a tiny isolated room) I doubted I could ever return. In this case, this decision had not been provoked by the typical problems with limited access, but instead by the heavy and negative impact that the stories of inmates had on me. Nevertheless, this place offered a unique chance to do something which had been impossible so far: to talk with every single person there who was willing, whether they were inmates, prison officers, technicians, teachers or nurses.
For the first time, such a comprehensive knowledge of a whole prison population actually became a feasible goal. Odemira was indeed an institution modest in size, and a place I could at least (try to) know better. The warden was immediately forthcoming; something that cannot be totally unrelated to the fact that this was a female prison and I a female researcher. She presented no obstacles or unwarranted problems to the authorizations I had obtained for my academic project from the Directorate-General. The director herself, whose career had included working in male prison facilities, stated: âThis is a different kind of prisonâ. Likewise, the officersâ attitude towards my presence there proved an essential contribution for the smooth progress of my research. Having previously visited âsome of the worst facilities in the countryâ, as they used to say, gained the directorâs authorization to carry out this investigation, and quickly blended in with the rest of the staff, joining them at meals, becoming involved in the daily chores and generally socializing with everyone without distinction, were some of the factors that gained me the trust and good will necessary to make my work there all the easier. Even though few of the officers granted me formal interviews, our conversations were continuous and everyone talked openly about their views on the prison system in general and Odemira in particular, about their work and their past professional experience. This prison became my âvillageââa place where I gradually became familiar with the habits, the spaces and its inhabitants.
In the course of a year, I visited Odemira every month, for one-week periods, usually from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. During this time, I could spend a day talking with a lot of people, or just hang around observing and getting the feeling for the place and its daily rhythms, perhaps not as someone who âbelongedâ, but surely as someone who, despite still an outsider, ended up becoming a familiar presence. I was an observer, but I also became a subject of observation, and as will become clear, this issue of visibility and presence turned out to be very significant on more than one occasion. As the months went by, and my presence became habitual, the personal histories of inmates naturally revealed nuances and complexity otherwise difficult to acknowledge.
While it is true that one year in prison tends to resemble any other year (just like the days seem to be all alike), we must not ignore that just as anywhere else, very much may change in a personâs life, both outwardly and inwardly, even in a short span of time. Some of the women who were on remand when I first began fieldwork, had since stood trial and become sentenced inmates while others had received the trial verdicts and been released on probation. Some had been admitted and others released (one had even been released and readmitted). Some had their court appeals decided and their sentences shortened, while others still faced new convictions added to their current sentences.
Again, if one day in prison resembles every other day, in one year there are birthdays and other celebrations, there are holy days, motherâs days, Christmas. The routines , with their apparent monotony, were different throughout the seasonsâthe shorter winter days with less working activities and more school seemed more lethargic, while abundant work and training courses filling the longer summer days gave them a more frantic pace. On the other hand, and despite the routines dictated by prison rules and regulations, time has a different value in prison (Cohen and Taylor 1972). One day, one hour, one year, can either be just like the next or become crucial in determining how one copes with the experience of life within walls, or with the present moment. The anxiety of waiting for a decision regarding a request for parole or a furlough; how a conflict or misunderstanding with a fellow prisoner is handled; how a phone call or a letter bearing news from home may soothe or exacerbate the impotence of confinement.
Inside prison, time becomes the measure for what one can âcopeâ with, for testing the personâs endurance to confinement âits environment and other occupantsâbefore one finally surrenders and gives in to it; before one rea...
