Safety in the ‘House of Certainty': The Question of Violence in a Ukrainian Prison

Prisons are potentially volatile places. This paper draws on ethnographic research in a medium-security men’s training prison to discuss the nature of a relatively low level of physical violence in a Ukrainian prison despite the low staff-to-prisoner ratio. It attributes this phenomenon primarily to the informal structure of prisoner society, and the central role of its illicit normative code of prison life. I explore how the legitimacy deficit of the Ukrainian State and its legal system, together with often anachronistic and unreal official prison rules and limited staff presence render the unofficial prisoners’ behavioural code the guarantor of the peaceful co-habitation. I demonstrate that despite discriminating against certain prisoners and instigating mutual and self-surveillance, these informal arrangements were deemed by most prisoners more just and legitimate than the official ones. Whilst this informal structure was inescapable and entailed harsh punishments for violations, it, to some degree, controlled and limited arbitrary violence and established a ‘house of certainty’ (Foucault, 1975). Furthermore, I argue that despite the official antagonistic stance towards the ‘inmate code’, prison authorities heavily depended on the prisoner-controlled informal structure to both keep the prison orderly and safe and maintain uninterrupted industrial production. I then discuss the implications of the recent and current changes in Ukrainian society and prisoner profile to the maintenance of safety and order in national prisons. I posit that the intricate power-balance present in the prison has relevance beyond Ukraine because it represents a microcosm of the interaction between powerful legitimate and illegitimate interests, where the vested interest of both is profit (industry) and order (status quo).