Prison and Reason: Reforming Penitentiary Conditions in Alobwed’Epie’s The Day God Blinked and G.D. Nyamndi’s The Sins of Babi Yar

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse the treatment of inmates within the repressive state apparatus. It interpretes perpetuations of bio-politics within the penitentiary system as portrayed in Alobwed’Epie’s The Day God Blinked and G.D. Nyamndi’s The Sins of Babi Yar and proposes recommendations to reform the disciplinary and punitive mechanisms enacted by the state and its agents upon inmates. The work critically observes that rather than serve its purpose of discipline, punishment and rehabilitation, the prison, an element of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), serves as a coercive tool and a terrain for the perpetuation of biopolitics thereby producing recidivism, more delinquents and plunging families and society into jeopardy. Based on a postcolonial reading of the text with critical thoughts from Michel Foucault’s discourse on prison systems, the paper argues that a reform of the perpetuations of biopolitics within and beyond the incarceration system of the postcolony is needed. This will effectuate subaltern emancipation because the coercive approach on inmates has been counter-productive. The study found out that the absence of rehabilitative measures like gender considerations, privatization, infrastructural provision of social amenities, access to family and pastoral care has increased recidivism and calls for their inclusion in the treatment of inmates.