Abstract
When considering issues of incarceration, Ubuntu as an ethical framework has been considered only in the light of prison abolition and restorative justice, as seen in the work of Augustine Shutte (2009), Mechthild Nagel (2014), and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1999). However, South Africa is still making use of the prison system and does not seem ready to cease this practice. What I aim to do here and differently from other Ubuntu theorists is to present Ubuntu’s implications when one takes the prison system for granted. My claim is that, if there is Ubuntu in prison that reflects the Ubuntu in civil society, it is likely to impress more rehabilitation on prisoners based on communal ethics necessary for genuine reintegration. The issue I deal with here is how to exhibit more Ubuntu in prison and what sorts of implications this would have for relationships in South African jails and civil society. I look at a version of Ubuntu advanced by Thaddeus Metz because of its comprehensiveness and plausibility. Metz centrally describes Ubuntu as living harmoniously with others, where harmony comprises salient African values that manifest as solidarity and shared identity. According to this ethic, we ought to have safe communal spaces that facilitate genuine shared identity and solidarity for prisoners, where prisoners are safe from gang influence and sanctuaries from moral degeneration in prison. With this, we ought to involve and at times even coerce gang leaders to be a part of these safe spaces, so that they can have a direct impact on gang activity and have gang leaders be an example of Ubuntu in prison that is possible. I then discuss the status quo of South African prisons, focusing on the conditions prevalent in South African prisons and the kinds of relationships that these conditions harbour. I use Ubuntu here to evaluate prison legislation and rules based on the newly adopted United Nations’ Nelson Mandela Rules for the treatment of prisoners. These rules, intended to make prison more humane, are concerned primarily with human dignity but tend to miss some crucial communal implications when dispensing these rules. I point out that these rules also need to be cognizant of the changes once in effect on communal harmony in prison. Making prisons more iv humane requires communal changes on top of individual considerations as the rules have done.
Ph.D. (Philosophy)