Punishment and Labouring Bodies
Foucault (1977) relates the different punishments to the systems of production within which they operate. He argued that in a slave economy, punitive mechanisms served to provide an additional labor force. The prison constituted a body of ‘civil’ slaves in addition to those provided by war or trading. Foucault further noted that with feudalism, at a time when money and production were still at an early stage of development, there was increase in corporal punishments. With the development of the mercantile economy, the body being the only property accessible, forced labor and the prison factory appeared. However, Foucault noted that as the industrial system required a free market in labor, in the nineteenth century, the role of forced labor as mechanism of punishment diminished and ‘corrective’ detention took its place (Foucault 1977: 24-25). However, in colonial Uganda both moral reform and prison labour co-existed as prison purposes, reinforcing each other. Foucault further argues:
The systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain ‘political economy’ of the body: even if they do not make use of violent or bloody punishment, even when they use ‘lenient’ methods involving confinement or correction, it is always the body that is at issue– the body and its forces, their utility and their docility, their distribution and their submission. (Foucault 1977:25)
The discipline and punishment of prisoner’s bodies are described in the colonial records and the relation to labour resources is evident. One example concerns diet. From 1912, prisons introduced penal diet, with or without solitary confinement, as a new form of punishment for indiscipline. Punishable infractions included: bad character, smuggling tobacco into prison, possession of contraband tobacco, refusing to obey orders of prison officers, assaults on prison officers and inmates and refusing to work. In his Prisons report for the year 1927, Tremlett (Uganda Protectorate 1928) indicated that ‘the punishment of penal diet and solitary confinement appears to have the desired effect on the behavior of those deserving it.’ The penal diet included being denied meat or food for some days or feeding once a day depending on the severity of the offense. However, given the value of prison labour as a resource, the colonial administration adopted a change in penal diet which included providing meat in the diet, and providing two meals (breakfast and lunch) each day. This would keep them healthy and physically fit to provide labour. In his 1935 report, the Commissioner emphasized the importance of prison labour, noting that:
The inclusion of such large quantity of meat in the diet of native prisoners, in view of the fact that meat under normal conditions is not eaten regularly by natives is often criticized as an unnecessary and inappropriate luxury. It is necessary, however, to remember that by incarceration in prison for lengthy periods the prisoner is not only deprived of his liberty, his own food and drink but is also required to be maintained in a physical condition fit for hard labour. (Uganda Protectorate 1935: 11)
The humane treatment of the prisoner through provision of a balanced diet was to maintain a prisoner in health and strength in order to meet the labour demand of the Protectorate.
Whipping (5-24 strokes) was a form of colonial punishment aimed at inflicting pain on the body to induce hard work and exploit prisoner’s labour to the maximum.