Dutch photographer Jan Banning turned his lens on prisons and prisoners for his book Law & Order: The World of Criminal Justice,. Below we see photographs pictures of prison life in Colombia, France, Uganda and the United States.
Central surveillance tower of the Grand Quartier of the Maison d’arrêt de Bois-d’Arcy, France, October 2013
“I’m interested in these aspects of society that are vital but not necessarily considered to be picturesque,” he said. “Basically, it’s an attempt to visually cope with the question of how we handle crime. I think it always makes tremendous sense to compare different societies as I’ve done with Bureaucratics because, of course, in comparison, the character of a specific society comes out.”
– Jan Banning
San Diego Medium Security Women’s Prison in Cartagena, Colombia, August 2011.
Having discussed which countries to show with the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Banning began his project in Uganda in 2010. There he visited 10 prisons of various security levels. He noticed that even in maximum security prisons, his guide was typically an unarmed warden or assistant. He found the places “rather friendly and rather humane”.
In the United States, his movement was more restricted. The prisons were sterile. In Colombia, the country’s INPEC penal agency attempted to turn him into “an unpaid propagandist”, preventing him from photographing cells in high-security prisons and limiting his visits to places like gardens and education centres.
Georgia State Prison, November 2012. A committee of “lifers”—men with life sentences—meets. This medium-security prison near Reidsville was opened in 1937. It houses 1,500 inmates.
“In the beginning, I was a bit suspicious. I thought, ‘OK, maybe this is a PR exercise and they’re just doing this for me.’ But I noticed it in all 10 prisons I was in, and some were tiny local prisons where you wouldn’t expect the personnel to have any idea of PR. So I thought that was honest. Of course, the prisons there are still not a place where you’d love to be. They’re overcrowded, half the prison population hasn’t been on trial, and some have been sitting there without charges for five or six years.”
– Jan Banning on prisons in Uganda
Putnam County Jail in Eatonton, Georgia, June 2012.
“I think this debate is incredibly important in the U.S. Of course, it’s important in other countries also, but I think the way crime is handled here in Europe is not as exaggerated as it is in the U.S. and the number of people involved in the U.S. is so much bigger.”
– Jan Banning
Nakasongola Prison, Uganda, February 2013.
“In the other countries dealt with in this book – France, Uganda and the U.S. – I was able to produce a more or less fair and balanced series of photos. In the case of Colombia, I have to clearly admit that I have fallen victim to INPEC’s censorship.”
– Jan Banning on prisons in Colombia
Luzira Remand Prison in Kampala, Uganda, in May 2010.
“You see lots and lots of people more or less rotting away, and some manage to turn their prison time into something sensible, but for a lot of them they’re just sitting there, and I don’t think it makes much sense for them, or for society.
“Not that I’m so arrogant as to say I know what the solution is. I don’t. But I hope this book contributes to people thinking about it.”
– Jan Banning
A prisoner in his cell in the Maison d’arrêt de Bois-d’Arcy, France, October 2013.
Establecimiento Carcelario de Reclusion Especial in Sabana Larga, Colombia, August 2011.
Centre Pénitentiaire de Lille-Annoeullin, France, April 2013.
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