#surveillants

[mirrorontheworld]

La violence à l’état brut: ce qui nous parvient

La section française de l'Observatoire international des prisons a publié le 3 juin un rapport d'enquête sur les violences commises par les agents pénitentiaires. Nous faisons le choix de reproduire ici les signalements que nous recevons afin de donner à voir le type d’alertes que nous arrivent régulièrement et qui ont motivé l’écriture de ce rapport.

[thomasgiraudeau]

Jusqu'en août 2022, les AED, assistants d'éducation, ou "surveillants", ne pouvaient pas exercer ce métier plus de six ans. Désormais, ils peuvent demander leur CDIsation à l'issue de cette période. Encore faut-il qu'elle soit acceptée par leur établissement ?

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“It is likely that the dense patterning of predatory, recreational, and collusive relations between prisoners and surveillants heightened violence between the two groups. Disputes over gambling or business deals, rivalry over contraband, late payments of bribes, jealousy over sexual partners, failure to honor verbal agreements—all of these contributed to the potential for vendettas, contract killings, and explosive outbursts of violence within the institution. Prisoners were most frequently the victims of such violence, but guards were targeted too. During a visit to Poulo Condore in the mid 1930s, Jean-Claude Demariaux was struck by the numerous graves of murdered matas in the island’s cemetery. Huynh Thuc Khang’s 1939 memoir Thi Tu Tung Thoai (Prison Verse) evokes a tense atmosphere in which guards were periodically singled out by vengeful inmates and assassinated, observing: “In prison there are groups of scoundrels so violent-tempered that a dirty look or minor comment will provoke them to fight and often kill those around them.” After detailing several dramatic cases involving murdered guards from 1905, 1910, and 1918, Khang noted that “in prison, such killings are . . . everyday stories.”

The archival record chronicles numerous instances in which guards were set upon by prisoners. An interesting example dates from 1914, in which a mata at Kham Lon was clubbed to death by Nguyen Van Bong, a prisoner serving a life sentence for murdering another guard on Poulo Condore several years earlier. In regard to the more recent murder, investigators pointed to a pattern of professional negligence on the part of the guard as a factor contributing to the attack: 

“It must be reported that the sense of danger that their job should instill in surveillants frequently fades through force of habit. Guards and surveillants who over many years have never been the target of sudden violence tend to become less careful, less vigilant, and less respectful of the regulations designed to protect their own personal safety.”

The investigation noted that the same surveillant had been attacked and wounded by a prisoner four years earlier, in what was officially dubbed “an act of personal vengeance.” Implying a similar explanation for the recent attack, the investigator reported that “a close relationship had once existed between Bong and his victim.”

Seven months later, while awaiting execution for the murder described above, Nguyen Van Bong struck again. With help from a Cambodian convict condemned to die the following day, he killed one guard and wounded three others with a homemade knife. An enquiry into the death of the third surveillant in five years to die at Bong’s hands again highlighted dangers arising from “permanent contact” between keepers and kept: 

The permanent contact between guards and prisoners expunges in the former the appropriate sense of danger. It is thus that the most explicit rules are violated, ironically by those whom they were intended to protect. What level of compulsion can we expect from rules, guidelines, or advice when the risk of death itself proves insufficient?

- Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. pp. 81-82.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“According to numerous sources, indigenous guards regularly extorted money from prisoners and their families. Matas, for example, were notorious for demanding a wide array of illicit payments from prisoners, known as “surveillance money.” In 1909, an inmate named Pham Van Thu wrote to the resident superior claiming that prisoners who refused to pay guards in Hanoi Central Prison were routinely beaten or punished falsely for bogus disciplinary infractions. Prisoners who paid promptly, on the other hand, stood to enjoy perks such as extra rations and exemptions from the rigors of the forced labor. “Such prisoners may receive special supplies from their families, including opium,” Pham Van Thu complained, “and they are allowed to relax for long periods at work sites.”

In 1929, Phan Van Hum claimed that matas in the Saigon Central Prison demanded bribes directly from the families of prisoners:

When a new prisoner arrives, the Annamite guard orders the caplan to record his name, profession, residence, home village, sentence, and registration number. With all this information, the guard picks a day off and visits the prisoner’s house. Members of his family are typically starved for information about the condition of their imprisoned loved one. Hence, the guard can lie that their imprisoned relation has been severely beaten, is weak, and has no one to care for him. He then offers to look after the prisoner in exchange for money. If the family does not believe the guard’s lie and refuses to pay, then the guard makes sure that the lie is no longer a lie.

The fact that matas and prisoners came from the same background facilitated this particular form of corruption. It is difficult to imagine European guards in Indochina furtively blackmailing prisoners’ families this way. Not only would it have entailed considerable risks, but it would have been difficult for Europeans to practice such intimidation and extortion in the Vietnamese cultural context. The institution of “surveillance money” was little more than a crude form of extortion, but matas devised more subtle methods as well. On Poulo Condore, they developed an ingenious scheme that entailed soliciting bribes from prisoners to facilitate escapes, while simultaneously tipping off bounty hunters in return for a cut of their reward money. Although this practice was eventually discovered and the matas involved dismissed, the high frequency of escapes and recaptures on the island suggests that similar arrangements may have persisted throughout the colonial era. In addition, matas collected a wide variety of petty bribes and informal fees from prisoners. Le Van Hien describes matas at Kon Tum Prison selling fresh fruit and cakes to prisoners at inflated prices. On Poulo Condore, matas were known to auction off easy work assignments to the highest bidder, to organize gambling in return for a percentage of the winnings, and to tolerate opium smoking in exchange for small quantities of the drug.

Just as bribery and petty extortion upset the scripted formalities of penal surveillance, collusive and recreational fraternization between Vietnamese guards and Vietnamese prisoners undermined institutional norms as well. Illicit intercourse was often based on a common enthusiasm for narcotics and alcohol. In 1889, the warden of the Hanoi Civil Prison discovered that guards and prisoners were regularly sneaking away from hard-labor work sites together in order to “smoke opium in a den on the rue des Cartes.” In 1925, the warden of the Kien An Provincial Prison reported that a guard and a group of bootleggers he was escorting to the prison had “arrived, after an unusually long time, in a state of utter drunkenness.” 

Similar episodes were cited regularly on Poulo Condore: 

In addition to their proclivities for vices such as drunkenness and opium smoking, indigenous personnel rarely report irregularities concerning the activities and conditions of convicts under their authority. One reason is that they often befriend the latter so as to jointly indulge their vices and together commit misdeeds.

Gambling was another common interest. In 1910, the warden on Poulo Condore reported that “three convicts were found at eight yesterday morning at the camp of the matas gambling for large sums of money with the wife of the surveillant assigned to guard them.” In 1925, a guard in the Kien An Provincial Prison was caught “gambling in the main dormitory while several prisoners were wandering unsupervised in the yard.” In 1928, the warden of Poulo Condore included chronic gambling in a litany of complaints against the Vietnamese staff: 

Frankly speaking, most matas are drunks, opium addicts, and gamblers. They collude with the prisoners and steal from the regime. In short, their mentality is no better than [that of] the prisoners.

On Poulo Condore, prisoners and matas were mixed up in a thriving sex industry, a fact the warden bemoaned in 1910: “I call your attention to the demoralized state of the matas. These agents, a large percentage of whom are drunkards and opium addicts, are, with rare exceptions, involved in pimping and collusion with the detainees.’ The warden eventually expelled from the island the wives of two matas, “who, despite persistent warnings, had continued to organize gambling and prostitution for guards and prisoners.” Acknowledging the pervasiveness of prostitution within the prison, the warden expressed hope that “these expulsions may intimidate others involved in similar ventures.” To explain the prevalence of illicit social intercourse between prisoners and surveillants, French officials pointed to the powerful pull of racial solidarity. “It seems ridiculous,” explained the warden of Poulo Condore in 1916, “to entrust the security of indigenous prisoners to individuals of their own race. It is only natural that indigenous surveillants should sympathize with indigenous prisoners.” In 1932, a colonial inspector cited “nationalism” to explain such collusion: “The complacency and compassion that matas display toward the condemned derives from either a spirit of gain or a latent nationalism within all Annamites.” For French officials, intensified contact between prisoners and surveillants during Tet confirmed suspicions about the power of racial and national affinities. Intelligence reports note increases in fraternization connected to customary Tet activities such as gambling, drinking, and fortune-telling. Because members of each group grew increasingly homesick around Tet, both escape attempts and resignations from the guard corps always rose sharply as the New Year approached. There is even evidence that matas sometimes helped prisoners to escape in order that they might celebrate Tet at home with their families. In 1906, the resident of Hung Hoa raised the issue with the resident superior: “The goodwill guards feel toward prisoners is so excessive that they finished their mutual celebration of Tet by helping some prisoners escape. There is no question that these escapes only occurred through the complicity of the linhs. In general, orders are rarely executed, and linhs have frequently been discovered smoking opium with those they are charged to guard.”

- Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862–1940. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. pp. 76-79.

[actupenit]

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[actupenit]

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