Before conducting the interviews at the institutions selected I had earlier made preliminary visits to the six main institutions in order to discuss the proposed research, to negotiate future access and to enable the senior prison staff members, who were the gate-keepers, to contribute to the research. The degree of freedom I was allowed within the six institutions varied. Like the prisoners, I was bound by the physical arrangements within the institutions. However, I had more freedom in the institutions in which I had established a good rapport with the prison staff and I was allowed to walk around freely within the prison yard and observe what the prisoners were doing. The male prisoners often wrote down requests on pieces of paper and gave them to me to take action before I left. However, despite the insistence of the male prisoners I refused to make promises considering that they were not part of my research study. In each prison I had to adhere to the time table of locking and unlocking, work, visits, cooking and so on. Whenever I arrived I asked questions about the
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activities they would have to perform that morning. I then went ahead to talk to those inmates who were not doing anything and, when they wanted to cook, I gave them a break.
I immersed myself in the field through the different activities of female inmates which I observed. Participant observation is intended to elicit qualitative data which records and reflects the participants’ diversity, their experiences and their emotions. In addition, it opens up the meanings that the inmates ascribe to the situation in which they find themselves as opposed to the quantitative expressions of the relations between ‘variables’ (Denzin & Lincoln 2000).
Thus, my first two weeks in each prison were spent in familiarising myself with both the staff and the inmates. After I had established a rapport the next three weeks was spent in conducting the interviews while the last three weeks was spent in consolidating my initial data by re-interviewing some of the women in areas in which I wanted clarification and in finding out whether they had other things about prison conditions which they wanted me to know. My fieldwork appeared disorganised, undirected and chaotic because I did not follow my questions sequentially. There were times when I began the interviews by using the first question on my schedule and, at other times, I started from the middle or from the end. This procedure was influenced by the fact that some of the questions were sensitive and, when I realised the inmate in question was afraid of the personnel member next to me; I started with the less rigorous questions and waited until the staff member(s) had left before asking the sensitive questions. Despite the fact that I coded the interviews with both the staff and the inmates; it was the women’s voices which I used primarily in order to understand the prisons. Denzin and Lincoln (2000:654) refer to the concept of access as identifying the setting and then asking the question: How do we get in? Although the ways of ‘getting in’and attempts to ‘get in’ vary greatly with different settings, they all share the common goal of gaining access to the research participants (Hornby-Smith 1993). My access to the research participant was via verbal authorisation from the delegate of the penitentiary administration of Buea and Bamenda, and from the superintendents in charge of PA, PB, PC and PD. I did not need to negotiate access to PF because the female inmate whom I wanted to interview had already been released and so I conducted an in-depth interview with her out of prison. Gaining access to the research participants involved explaining to them the purpose of the research and how it could benefit them. I established trust by guaranteeing both confidentiality and anonymity and by establishing a good rapport with the informants.
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While in the field I chose to maintain a degree of distance between myself and the members of the prison staff, despite the fact that I had built close relationships with them for many years because of my evangelistic ministry in prison. However, I took that decision to ensure that the women would not identify me as a friend of the administration and withdraw the trust I had built up with them. The inmates mentioned a gender bias towards officers indicating a near universal preference for the male officers as compared to the female officers and notions of femininity were present everywhere.
The first prison I visited was Prison A where the staff member in charge of personnel had arranged an introduction for me. He conducted me around the prison to acquaint me with the prison environment so that I would then be able to move around freely and conduct my interviews. I felt at ease because of my previous church involvement with the staff member who showed me around the prison. This had made him more open to me and he introduced me to the officers in the various sections of the prison as well as introducing me to the superintendent in charge of the prison. The superintendent was the most senior officer in the prison and she granted me permission to conduct my interviews. However, once again I found favour because I realised she had attended the same secondary school as me. As a result all other staff members became friendly and allowed me freedom each time I came to the prison to interview the staff members and the inmates. However, the fact that I had enjoyed such successful access to this prison somehow backfired in the end because I did not realise that access is an ongoing process each time you come to a prison. The power may have changed hands and the new staff may either not know you or may try to humiliate you because you have not given them a tip.
As regards the female inmates some of the interviews were successful although, for some, I had to clarify what my identity was as had been stated earlier. One of the inmates feared I was a journalist and said:
Please, I can’t respond to you because, tomorrow, I will watch and see myself over the television. You know my sentence is over, if not of the fact that I don’t have money to pay fine; you wouldn’t have seen me here. Now, if you advertise me, how will the public look at me (Christie).
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I understood quickly where this inmate was suggesting. She feared stigmatisation from society and so I reassured her of both confidentiality and anonymity. It was then that she took a deep breath and said “Okay, I will participate in the interview, but know that immediately the yard mistress comes to take me home for my sister’s funeral I will not hesitate to leave”. I said that was in order.
I also had a ‘cold’ interview where, despite all the attempts by the superintendent in charge and the other inmates to convince one of the female inmates on death row to participate in the interview, she refused to do so. I assured her that the interview was for academic purposes but she looked at me sharply as if wanting to fight me and said:
Interview the rest, I will not participate. What has the numerous interviews I participated in the past helped me? I have been in prison for 27 years and every now and then people from different background have interviewed me and given me hope, yet it amounted to nothing. Do you think you will make the difference? (Female inmate sentenced to death).
She was talking while walking away from me. I allowed her to go as it was essential that the female inmates participated in the interviews voluntarily. The next time I met her she was cleaning the poultry yard and I greeted her. However, she did not answer me but just looked at me and sighed. The other inmates consoled me and told me that it was her usual attitude with all visitors. As a researcher, I was aware that this inmate did not trust me and she had no desire to tell me anything important about her experience of imprisonment.
In contrast to the ease of PA my visit to PB was clouded with problems. These difficulties stemmed from the way in which I had gained access to the establishment. I was scheduled to visit PB and, immediately I arrived, I noticed there were warders training early in the morning and then trying to settle disputes later on with regards to the information the inmates could give out which actually destroyed the image of the prison. Some of the prison authorities warned the younger staff of the consequences this could have for their careers. I sat, watched and feared what was going to happen to me as I was coming for research purposes and there was an information leakage being blamed on researchers. One of the staff members walked up to me and asked me to leave and come at another time. However, even when I returned a week later I realised I would not be given space to talk to the inmates
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individually without a staff member being present. I was not comfortable with this situation because I was sure the inmates would not express what was on their minds regarding their experiences as prison inmates. A successful interview needed to be conducted outside of the women’s cells otherwise the inmates would not be open. The private room given to me in prison B in which to conduct the interviews with the women was to my advantage because all of the women to whom I spoke felt secure in telling me about their problems in great detail.
After the interviews, some of the officers came and spoke to me, warning me not to believe the inmates and stating that they were all liars and thieves. However, after a few weeks of continuous interaction with the inmates, they became interested in what I was doing and indicated that they hoped the research would bring about a change in the prison policy. The women spoke softly and in detail about their prison experiences. Once the women had expressed interest in my research, I started to tape-record the interview in a private room where we would not be disturbed either by the staff or by other women.
The next section examines the process of data analysis.