As visiting day begins at Sarposa prison, on the western edge of Kandahar city, Afghanistan, a throng of burqa-clad women and school-age children gathers outside and waits to pass through the facility’s outer gate. Every spare hand holds either the small fist of a young child or a cloth sack of food and supplies for the men inside. A half-dozen smiling Afghan guards watch the steady flow, preparing to search for contraband. American advisers observe from a distance, waiting to see whether the guards will follow their basic lessons on how to run a safe and secure prison.
More pressing questions hang unspoken in the dry air: When will the training be done? When can U.S. officials hand Afghans the prison keys — figuratively and literally — and walk away without serious security and humanitarian concerns?
These concerns loom over nearly everything the United States does in Afghanistan, particularly under pressure from the deadline for security transition by the end of 2014. But prisons stand at the intersection of multiple security and non-security efforts, including those that address detention and corrections operations, the rule of law and the justice system, corruption and the reintegration of former Taliban fighters. Setbacks in reforming the Afghan corrections system are frustrating for U.S. officials. They are ready to leave but unable to go.
Despite the combined work of U.S. and NATO officials, detention operations in Afghanistan remain among the most problematic in the world. Since 2001, the number of prisoners held in the country’s 34 provincial prisons and 200-plus district detention centers has grown from approximately 600 to nearly 21,000. Overcrowding has strained a decaying infrastructure, while personnel shortages, inadequate guard training and corruption have further undermined operations. Add poor government oversight and the persistent influence of militant extremists throughout the country, and Afghan prisons have become a necessary evil — an essential component of security efforts that often causes as many problems as it solves.
Most of these problems persist despite many years and many dollars spent on reform efforts. Security is still a major concern. In April, more than 480 Taliban prisoners tunneled out of Sarposa in what some corrections experts call the most amazing breakout since the Great Escape of World War II. Corruption continues to be rampant. Detainees bribe poorly paid guards, get cellphones to call criminal associates and allow radicals to exert widespread influence throughout the prison system. As a result, insurgents can use prisons as bases from which to plan lethal operations against U.S., coalition and Afghan forces.
Concerns about prisoner abuse are also still present. Just a few weeks ago, the United Nations reported systematic torture at some Afghan detention centers, prompting U.S. and NATO officials to stop transferring prisoners to Afghan custody in several provinces.
Part of the problem may be how U.S. and coalition officials have approached prison reformation in Afghanistan — by introducing systems and methods that are effective in Western prisons and training Afghans to look at their corrections system as we do ours. But American corrections experts say cultural norms and the situation on the ground mean that Afghan prisons often function very differently than those in the United States. They describe guards’ relationships with inmates as nonconfrontational and less authoritarian, and say that Afghan detention centers sometimes serve more like halfway houses than anything else. Some NATO allies concede that while newly constructed prisons improve security by increasing the likelihood that prisoners will be locked in their cells, they also challenge Afghans to forgo elements that resonate culturally, such as having inmates share a collective life in the prison courtyard. As a result, even our best efforts at reforming their correction system inevitably leave gaps.
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