25th March 2026
This workshop is part of the Social Analysis of Penalities Across Boundaries series, which is co-organised by Professor Richard Sparks and Professor Máximo Sozzo.
Speaker: Carole Berrih is an associate researcher at CERDAP² (Grenoble Alpes University.
Abstract:
This presentation examines low-tech prison intelligence practices in Niger and the strategic role of some prisoners in everyday prison surveillance. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Niger, it reveals how prison administration orchestrates sophisticated hierarchical networks of detainees — led by the Sarki — to collect, filter, and transmit information on conflicts, planned escapes, and threats to order. These prisoner-informants receive tangible privileges and authority in exchange for their loyalty.
Yet prison wardens systematically undermine this hierarchy by cultivating competing networks of informants. This deliberate multiplication of intelligence sources fragments power structures, normalizes pervasive suspicion among inmates, and effectively prevents collective action. The result is a climate of mutual surveillance that corrodes trust and inhibits collective resistance.
This research demonstrates that prisoner participation constitutes neither state weakness nor informal governance, but a calculated control technique through which inmate-based surveillance reinforces rather than replaces state power.
Bio:
Carole Berrih is an associate researcher at CERDAP² (Grenoble Alpes University / Sciences Po Grenoble, France). After twenty years of experience with NGOs and UN agencies, she completed her PhD in Public Administration in 2024, examining the exercise of authority in Nigerien prisons. She has since expanded her research to comparative prison studies and is currently a visiting researcher at Ryukoku University (Kyoto), analysing reward-based prison regimes in Japan.