Staff-prisoner power negotiations in Ukraine

What is it about?

I discuss how officers and prisoners negotiate order to produce a manageable, stable, predictable, peaceful and relatively habitable prison environment. I demonstrate that in the context of prison’s radical deficit in legitimacy, exacerbated by a corrupt, under-reformed, post-totalitarian state, non-conformity with legal norms might be more legitimate than legal conformity.

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Why is it important?

This article broadens the debate about power and order by introducing a case study from a non-‘Western’ context. I argue that prisoners and officers, apart from utilitarian compromises, also employ moral reasoning in their power negotiations.