Within various African law traditions, concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation are reasonably common. Various reconciliatory forms of justice can be found in indigenous laws throughout the continent. The Igbo in Nigeria and the Songhai Empire of West Africa, for example, were known to have indigenous social control and justice strategies that focus on forgiveness, communalism, healing and restitution instead of retribution. Ubuntu in South Africa is possibly the most well known and internationally acclaimed term.

So how do the indigenous African traditions in the field of forgiveness and reconciliation relate to the reality in its prisons?

Ruth Hopkins (UK/South Africa), Baz Dreisinger(USA) and Morris Kaberia (Kenya) will discuss incarceration in Africa. Caroline Wanjiku Kihato (Kenya/USA) will moderate the debate.

Do prisons in Africa need to be decolonized? 'The Misery Merchants' by Ruth Hopkins