Entering a prison to conduct qualitative research is difficult in any circumstance. Generally, it is difficult because individuals within prisons are considered ‘high risk’ or ‘vulnerable subjects’ who need protection, which in some cases “hinders scientific inquiry” (Schlosser, 2008:3). Within countries such as Lebanon, which is in nature a Third World country, several other issues arise. Some of the issues faced within this study included: issues with gaining access, safety, gender, and in some circumstances taboo.
In an attempt to reduce the barriers to the study, it was essential to make connections prior to the study. These connections were important for two reasons (1) to overcome barriers
resulting from studying a taboo topic (2) to gain access to participants. There are numerous topics that are considered to be taboo in Lebanon, crime and sex being two major ones. It is due to this taboo that barriers are present in the reporting, and the dealing with sex offenders. Moreover, the taboo associated with sex offending results in the use of honour crimes to cover up the ‘family shame’ of being a victim of such offences and, the lack of care and treatment of sex offenders.
From a methodological standpoint, studying a topic laden with taboo made it difficult to access participants, and hindered people’s participation. Making connections with the right people was therefore important to obtain access and conduct interviews. Namedropping and the use of connections to ease gaining access is not restricted to Lebanon. Early sociologists report that “their research freedom was conditioned by several factors and this generally meant being ‘connected’ either through friendship, employment, or other reference” (Trulson, Marquart
and Mullings, 2004:454).
The first ‘connection’ used was General Wahib Neaime, an ex-‐ military general whom I had previously worked with. General Wahib Neaime (prior to my arrival in Lebanon) laid the groundwork and arranged several meetings with the Ministry of Defence, which he attended on my behalf. Through these meetings a formal letter from the Ministry of Defence was obtained which granted permission for this study. Although these permissions were meant to be approved and ready to use upon arrival, several issues arose which resulted in delays.
Firstly, the permission that was meant to include the interviewing of prisoners as well as prison guards only allowed the interviewing of prison guards of one prison. This meant that another meeting had to be arranged to include prison guards, prisoners, and police officers from various prisons. This was time consuming, as it required several visits. Permissions were also incomplete at times as the Ministry of Defence had promised to include several police stations however, when the permission was ready to be collected there was no mention of police stations. The same problem was faced in relation to prisons, as the permissions did not
mention which prisons were accessible. Permissions therefore, needed to be regularly updated to include several other police forces and prisons across Lebanon. Every time the permission needed updating, it took no less than three weeks. These issues resulted in several delays to the data collection. It is important to note that despite the delays and issues with the permissions, the permissions would not have been granted were it not for the persistence of General Neaime. General Neaime, due to his prior status within the Lebanese army had significant authority within the government and therefore out of respect to that authority, the Lebanese government granted me permission.
Similar to General Neaime, AJEM (headed by Father Hadi Ayya) played a vital role in helping gain access to participants. AJEM’s role was somewhat different to that of General Neaime in that members of AJEM acted as informants. Informants are important when conducting research with subcultures such as criminals, deviants, juvenile gangs, and inmates (Maxfield and Babbie, 1995). “The word informant is normally used to refer to someone who helps make contact with subcultures” and AJEM did just that (Mafield and Babbie, 1995:251). As was previously mentioned, AJEM colleagues provided me with a list of potential participants at various points of the study. In addition to helping provide names, Father Ayya’s connections were used at various points. For example, Father Ayya aided in gaining access to prisons that
were denying me access despite the approved permission. This lack of access despite approved permission is common when researching within prisons. As Trulson et al. (2004:453)
highlighted “while getting access means that the researcher gets in the door, getting in the door does not ensure that the researcher will be privy to the necessary ‘data’ to make the research successful”. It is because of such issues that it was important to ensure the connections made at the beginning of the study remained strong throughout the whole research process.
The need for connections such as General Neaime and Father Hadi Ayya were important due to Lebanon’s culture of ‘wasta’ (connections) a system similar to that known in France as ‘du piston’ i.e. knowing somebody in a position of influence or within the UK as the ‘old boys network’. Without such connections, access to participants would have been extremely difficult if not impossible. This over-‐reliance on connections is evident throughout Lebanese culture. Chapter Two has highlighted how people can use ‘wasta’ in order to obtain stricter or more lenient sentences from judges, however ‘wasta’ is also used in several social arenas. “Wasta is the magical lubricant that smoothes the way to jobs, promotions, university places and much else even if you are not qualified… in fact, with the right connections, it can solve almost any kind of problem” (Ahmad, 2013).
In the case of this study, wasta was used positively in order to humanise bureaucracy and make it easier to gain access. However, in some cases there was a negative effect of using wasta. This was evident when there was a general lack of enthusiasm by many police officers and prison guards. Many of the police officers and prison guards acted as if they were forced to
participate, despite explaining that they were able to refuse participation and would be able to stop the interview if they wished to do so. All participants continued with the interviews however, some of these interviews were lacking in detail and explanations despite probing. Because of such experiences, it can be concluded that some police officers and prison guards, due to the use of connections, felt forced to participate in the study. Reflecting back, if there had been no time constraint I would have attempted to achieve participants without the use of connections through persistence and ensuring a wider range of police stations and prisons are visited.
Official permission to access police officers was granted on the condition that I had to
personally ring stations in order to enquire as to whether they had come into contact with sex offenders. This condition was put in place due to the fact that the Ministry of Defence did not want to grant permission to enter all stations across Lebanon. Instead, they wanted me to provide a list of potential stations, which they [the Ministry] later specifically named in the official permission. The list of police stations was small due to several reasons:
(1) Numerous police stations claimed they were too busy to participate.
(2) Numerous stations did not answer the phone to arrange an initial meeting. Similar to the judges and lawyers, police stations might have refused participation due to the taboo surrounding sex offences as well as due to the fear of being held accountable. (3) Numerous stations claimed they have not had any contact with sex offenders and
therefore could not participate in the study. This may be true due to the fact that numerous sex offences go unreported within Lebanon and therefore many officers may have never encountered sex offences.
(4) Some stations could not be included due to the fragile security situation within Lebanon. Such police stations included those situated in the far North and South of Lebanon. The inability to include all stations across Lebanon could result in a
misrepresentation, as perhaps the excluded areas have experienced more exposure to sex offences.
Once achieved, the permission stated that I was not to contact the police stations, instead stations were meant to contact me on their own accord. There was some confusion as some stations did not call or were confused as to what they had to do. For example, the first station to contact me, was perplexed as to whether the head of the station was required to aid me with forming initial contacts with other stations or not. This confusion highlighted a lack of communication between the Ministry of Defence and the police stations and its officers. Further evidence of lack of communication between the Ministry of Defence and police stations occurred when the heads of stations claimed they had not received the permissions. Although I always carried a copy of the permissions with me, stations did not accept my copy. Therefore, interviews could not be conducted before the head of the stations received the permission from the Ministry of Defence. This resulted in a constant delay.
Another re-‐occurring problem was the rescheduling of arranged meetings. Some stations constantly rescheduled and tried to avoid setting up meetings by failing to reschedule and claiming they will ‘get back to me’ with a date. It, therefore, sometimes took months of persistent follow-‐ups before a meeting was successfully arranged. When stations continuously rescheduled, connections (wasta) were used once again.
4.3.2 Gaining Access to Prisons
As was previously mentioned, not all prisons across Lebanon were accessible due to the tense and sometimes unstable situation within Lebanon. Moreover, some prisons were excluded due to the lack of sex offenders. As was mentioned in Chapter Three, Lebanon has twenty-‐one prisons distributed all across Lebanon. Therefore, as a timesaving technique, I referred to AJEM colleagues surrounding which prisons had incarcerated sex offenders as they [AJEM] have access to a list of offenders within all twenty-‐one prisons. Once AJEM had provided me with the list of prisons. A request was submitted to the Ministry of Defence to obtain official
permissions. Once the Ministry of Defence granted the permissions, an initial meeting was arranged with the Governor of Lebanon’s largest prison Roumieh to discuss the study. This process was then repeated with the various prison Governors; such meetings are essential in any-‐prison based research. In general, prison Governors were easily accessible and welcoming with the exception of Roumieh Prison’s Governor who kept postponing meetings claiming he was too busy. The meeting only occurred after I resorted to AJEM founding father Father Hadi Ayya who personally approached the Governor to arrange a meeting. This meeting was important as “at the very least you, as an individual researcher within a university or other appropriate body, will need the permission of the Governor and most likely also that of the Head of Psychology and the permission also of the Regional Psychologist if your research is to take place in one region” (Davies, 2011:164).
During these meetings, prison Governors were provided with details surrounding the study and the official permission obtained from the Ministry of Defence was examined to establish ground rules. Usually when such research is conducted, a standard application form is usually needed alongside other documents such as “your questionnaires, ethics approval, consent forms, CVS, etc.” (Davies, 2011:164). Within Lebanon the prison Governors did not require such documents, as they were only interested in the official permission. The focus on the official permissions was due to the fact that it acted as a safe guard, thereby protecting the prison
Governors and Wardens from any issues that may have resulted from allowing a researcher into prison. Moreover, the permissions provided Governors with guidelines as to what the researcher was allowed to do and whom he/she was allowed to talk to within the prison. For example, the Ministry of Defence allowed the use of a voice recorded within prisons. However, despite its guidelines, not all prison Governors agreed with the permission to use recorders and therefore most interviews were hand written. It is because of such occurrences, it is always important to be flexible and able to adapt when conducting research within the prisons. It is important to note that prison Wardens and Governors did not participate in this study, this was due to the permissions not mentioning their names personally and therefore resulting in their refusal to participate. Trulson et al. (2004:457) highlighted “it should hardly cause surprise to learn that those who supervise and manage the kept do not initially welcome scholars and other outsiders into their institutions to poke about for largely self-‐serving research interests”.
4.3.3 Gaining Access to Prison Guards
After several meetings with General Neaime and the Ministry of Defence, access to prison guards was granted. The prison guards were selected according to the prisons mentioned within the Ministry of Defence’s permission slip. These prisons therefore included, Roumieh Prison, the male and female prisons located in Tripoli, Byblos, and Zgharta. As was previously mentioned, prisons and police stations situated in the South of Lebanon and far north were excluded due to security reasons. Within each of the five prisons (Roumieh, Tripoli (Male and Female prisons), Byblos and Zgharta) Governors provided me with access to the prison guards. However, within Roumieh this process was more complex due to the fact that it is composed of four buildings each of which had its own ‘block Warden’. It is for that reason meetings with each of the block wardens took place to negotiate potential participants. However, two of the four blocks within Roumieh were inaccessible, Block D and B. Block D was inaccessible due to renovations, while Block B was inaccessible due to security issues and the fact that it housed accused terrorists who, at the time, were causing unrest within the prison block.
Prison Guards from Roumieh prison were therefore from blocks A and C, however they were not randomly chosen. The inability to randomly choose prison guards was as a result of the prison Governor and prison block Wardens insisting on assigning participants to me. It is unknown on what basis these guards were selected to speak to me. However, they may have been chosen according to availability and their unwillingness to over divulge information. It is
possible that the guards were chosen in order to provide me with information Governors and Wardens wanted me to have rather than their willingness to convey the reality of prison life. It is because of this that prison guard narratives need to be considered with caution as it is unknown how accurate they are. Questioning the accuracy of accounts does not however make the study any less valid.
4.3.4 Gaining Access to Judges and Lawyers
Access to judges and lawyers was easier than that of the police, prisoners and prison guards due to the fact that no governmental permission was needed. As was previously mentioned, AJEM, cooperate lawyers and General Neaime all played a large role in helping gain access to this group of participants. AJEM provided access to lawyers and judges within the organisation. However, even with their help, the participant rate was extremely low and therefore snowball sampling was needed.