Imprisonment and internment: Comparing penal facilities North and South

Recent references to the ‘warehouse prison’ in the United States and the prisión-depósito in Latin America seem to indicate that penal confinement in the western hemisphere has converged on a similar model. However, this article suggests otherwise. It contrasts penal facilities in North America and Latin America in terms of six interrelated aspects: regimentation; surveillance; isolation; supervision; accountability; and formalization. Quantitatively, control in North American penal facilities is assiduous (unceasing, persistent and intrusive), while in Latin America it is perfunctory (sporadic, indifferent and cursory). Qualitatively, North American penal facilities produce imprisonment (which enacts penal intervention through confinement), while in Latin America they produce internment (which enacts penal intervention through release). Closely entwined with this qualitative difference are distinct practices of judicial involvement in sentencing and penal supervision. Those practices, and the cultural and political factors that underpin them, represent an interesting starting point for the explanation of the contrasting nature of imprisonment and internment

PEACEFUL RELATIONS IN A STATELESS REGION: THE POST-WAR MARONI RIVER BORDERS IN THE GUIANAS

One effect of Surinam's civil war (1986-1992) has been the migration of the Maroon population and of Brazilian gold diggers to the frontier territory of the Maroni river basin. The region's new political structure is the product of a 'partial state failure' or a government void. In Latin America this phenomenon is generally associated with uncontrollable violence of a variety of non-state armed actors. In our case, extreme violence is absent. The region is even the locus of a fairly peaceful multi-ethnic social fabric, a peaceful multicultural coexistence of Maroons and Brazilian migrants, but Surinamese Maroons fled to French Guiana. In French Guiana the authorities tend to turn a blind eye to the stream of migrants, in Surinam they are more or less openly tolerated. The institutional perpetrators of the civil war violence have withdrawn from the region, alliances and treaties between the several Maroon clans and the regional indigenous village chiefs have been struck. The (informal) gold economy and the influx of Brazilian "garimpeiros" brings short-term prosperity and both ethnic groups enjoy their share of the surplus, whereas transport is protected by local Maroon authorities. The Brazilian migrants have learnt to pay their informal taxes and respect the customary laws of sexual relations and marriage. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.