Doctoral Dissertation Research: Regulatory Capture and the South African Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons

Cuny John Jay College Of Criminal Justice, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Project Abstract In their efforts to ensure prisoners proper treatment, prison inspectorates possess two related tools. One is bringing transparency to prisons. The other is holding prison officials publicly accountable. Affecting the effectiveness of these tools is prison officials co-optation (or capture) of prison inspectors. Most regulatory oversight researchers would say that capture safeguards prison officials interests and results in non-transparent prisons and therefore publicly unaccountable officials. But others would counter-argue that under certain conditions, prison officials capturing of inspectors actually increases accountability. These opposing positions will be tested in this study of South Africas Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JIOP). Using JIOP staff, whose function is to inspect and possibly improve prison conditions, three propositions will be tested. H1: the relationship between JIOP staff capture and transparency is negative. H2: there is a concave-shaped relationship between capture of JIOP staff and public accountability of prison officials. H3: The effect of capture on transparency is partially mediated by how accountable prison officials are. Three data collection strategies will be used for the study. First, a self-administered survey will be used to assess the presence and severity of capture. Within six months of the surveys completion, the co-PI will observe a Visitors Committee and Stakeholders meetings, which will be attended by (most) participants. The main purpose of these field observations is to collect transparency and accountability data. Finally, data for the latter variables will also be gathered using a content analysis of certain participant-created documents such as prisoner complaint forms. (Only documents produced between completion of the survey and the date of the observed Stakeholders meeting will be examined.) The researchers will rely on exploratory factor analysis to verify that the pre-selected survey items are relevant to capture; OLS regression will be used to test H1. H2 will be tested via second-order polynomial regression technique. Finally, H3 will be tested using the Sobel method. Considering that security forces participated in severe human rights abuses before, during, and after apartheid in South Africa, it is imperative that the fledgling South African democracy operate within constitutional and statutory bounds as well as openly. The PI and co-PI expect to find that in order to expose prison conditions, check officer abuse and prisoner neglect, and encourage institutional reform, JIOP staff will need to become somewhat captured because an adequately captured inspector may be able to motivate prison officials to implement changes that will lead to more efficiently operated and humane corrections institutions. Furthermore, they expect that this would have implications concerning whom inspectorates would hire and retain as inspectors. Finally they expect this study to generate implications about prisons and government oversight beyond the South African border.