Ambivalent ideologies and the limitations of the colonial prison in Sudan, 1898–1956

Abstract

This article investigates the failure of the colonial state in Sudan to establish an extensive and reformative prison system according to the European ideal. It attributes this failure not just to the limited material resources of the colonial state but to its own internal divisions and ambivalent attitude towards the notion of a reformative penal project. This mirrored the state's ambivalent attitude toward other forms of development, education and “civilisation”. In this failure with prison reform, the colonial regime in Sudan deprived itself of a key tool for the exercise of infrastructural power. The article describes the violent and transgressive behaviour of Sudan's prison inmates, and examines the efforts of those officials managing colonial jails to negotiate these difficulties, at times resorting to extreme force in order to keep control.