Filming the obscurity

Raphael Rowe. I don’t have a specific objective and that’s the beauty of it. My approach to journalism is more organic, I go in there and I discover. I try to engage with the people I meet, whether they are prisoners, prisoners’ families, or prison guards, and allow them to authentically express themselves. The goal is to educate the public, humanise prisoners, and show the conditions for what they really are rather than having an agenda, or positioning myself by saying that this or that should be changed. Of course, I’m going to react naturally when I find something disgusting, upsetting, or uncomfortable, but that’s human nature. When I see something that doesn’t look right, for example a prisoner lying flat on the floor with guards on his back, I try to understand why it’s happening, if it’s the right way to restrain a prisoner and if it’s the same way they do it for all the other prisoners. That’s my check and balance. It’s not about me sitting down with anybody and trying to investigate abuses, it’s what I witness.

Prison structures and laws differ from place to place but the ethos remains the same: how should an individual in prison be treated and what should they be provided? For me, it’s about discovering how different countries and cultures balance security, punishment, and rehabilitation. By being in that environment and talking directly to a prisoner, I find out what they experience on a daily basis.

We know about the violence and drugs, and all the other issues that we see in the press, but you never hear anybody talk about a prisoner not having any toilet paper to use the bathroom. Those are the little things that I try to reveal to people as a journalist, to show that prisoners are human beings and have needs just like anybody else.

In terms of production and broadcasting, the objective is to capture content and play it to the world. The show follows a format that has a beginning, middle and end, and consists of ticking certain boxes such as my arrival, being processed, looking at the food, seeing the workshops, etc. We film for seven days and condense it into an hour-long programme. At the beginning, the audience sees me coming up in a prison or police van and telling the audience what prison I’m going to. At the end of the programme, I’m leaving the prison and sharing my reflection on what they’ve just seen.

RR. We encounter difficulties all the time. The first challenge is getting the authorisations in the country. It has to come from the Minister of Justice if not the President or Prime Minister. Some open their arms and are willing to show us because they want people to see how challenging it is to provide the resources or improve rehabilitation, all while being criticised by human rights organisations for their abuse of prisoners or their lack of care. We’ve even had prisons invite us to come document their conditions. But 80 % of the time, it’s extremely difficult to gain access and it takes months and months of negotiating. Our team identifies the prison and then makes an initial approach. Then there is a convoluted back and forth of emails and messages. And even when contracts are about to be signed, things can fall apart at the last minute. Over the years, the negotiations have become easier because they see for themselves what we’re doing and how we’re doing it through the programme. They already have an idea of what will be taking place and what our objective is.

There are times when they might tell us we aren’t allowed to go into a particular area because there are vulnerable prisoners there and exposing them to cameras could cause a security risk. Compromises are made, but if we think it’s because they’re trying to hide something, we won’t accept it, because it would jeopardise the integrity of our journalism. There isn’t much we can do apart from that. It’s about juggling between taking the time to look at the things the prison wants us to see, but also the things we want to see.

There have been many occasions when I have been inside a prison where something was agreed upon only to be denied to us while we were there. There have been other instances when I’ve gone to see prisoners in solitary confinement but was refused to talk to them and ask what it’s like being punished and whether it works. I would tell the directorate, “But if you want people to see that you’re doing the right thing, you have to let them see”.

Sometimes, they may agree to let us go in a particular wing because it’s relevant to the theme of the episode. For example, the topic may be drug addiction, and drugs may be the root cause of most crime in the country, so we’ll be able to visit the drug rehabilitation wing. We don’t just go into the prison to monkey cage prisoners, or because we can get in there and film inside a prison. There has to be a reason. We are intruding in people’s lives, their private life, and whether they’re in prison or not, they deserve to be treated like human beings.

During filming, in order to use our time constructively, my crew might go ahead to talk to a group of prisoners, try to identify someone who can or is willing to articulate what it is that they want to say. Not all prisoners are willing to share their personal stories as well as take the risk of talking about the prison. Certain things have to be put in place, but if I’m walking along the landing in a prison, I might stop and start talking to a prisoner. They might become a character in one of my episodes because they have something important to say, something revealing, something educational or informative about the prison or their own lives that people can benefit and learn from.

RR. When I filmed an episode in Tacumbú, located in Paraguay and notoriously one of the most dangerous prisons in the world, I witnessed first-hand the drug abuse, gang culture and violence taking place in that environment. I was really surprised that the authorities gave us access, but it was because they wanted to show the challenges they face as a country trying to contain the drug cartels. Hundreds of prisoners would sleep on the floor in tinglados, open-air corrugated shelter, because the prison didn’t have the resources to provide better conditions. The directorate said on camera that he has to let a ‘drug boss’ within the prison sell drugs because of the violence that would erupt if prisoners didn’t get their drugs. The episode caused such a stir in Paraguay that they have decided to build new prisons. I’ve been talking to the Minister of Justice about how we can contribute to make the new prisons what they want them to be and avoid recreating the same environment as in Tacumbú. I am not advocating that building more or bigger prisons is the answer to reducing crime or drug use, that’s not the argument here. But it does illustrate the impact that the show can have in promoting change. Other changes are also being considered in some countries as a result of the programme’s exposure. Some ministers have used our programme to ask the government to provide more resources to improve conditions.

I constantly receive messages from all over the world from people who’ve just watched the programme, can’t believe their eyes, and want to know what more can be done. Prisons are always so closed off that people don’t know what goes on inside. I’m exposed to it all the time, so I tend to think that everybody else is informed like I am, but I’m reminded that that’s not the case at all. I get messages from people wanting to send these individuals food parcels, gifts, or money to help support the prisoners knowing that they’re going to spend the rest of their lives in prisons. People overlook the crimes that these individuals have committed, and they see the human being, they see the cruelty of keeping somebody in prison for their entire life, even after they’ve changed.

I’m trying to reach people that are so far removed from the criminal justice system, so far removed from prison, so far removed from the experiences of people who end up in prison, that they have no sense of how important this issue is and how relevant it is to society.

When they do realise what’s going on they start thinking about what they can do to help. There are also lots of legal professionals out there who have strong experience working in the human rights space who have offered their assistance. They want to go in and legally challenge the government to fulfil its obligations, obligations that countries around the world have agreed to in the form of human rights conventions. We often get told that the majority of people in prison are bad but they’re not. The minority of people in prison have done really bad things but the majority are just like you and me, the majority of people have economic and psychological challenges in their life as well as a number of other issues, and people must never forget that.