Indigenous Coping and Cultural Importation: Explaining Shared Governance in the Philippines

• In Event: Cross-National Studies on Criminal Justice

Abstract

Using intensive interviews with inmates, participant observation, and survey of jail officers in a remand facility in the Philippines, this paper investigates the shared governance model, a form of indigenous coping, that is utilized by Filipino inmates to overcome acute overcrowding, lack of resources, inadequate personnel, and other structural deficits. Additionally, using the first author’s personal experience as a former detainee and an advocate for prison reforms for the past 20 years, this paper explores the factors related to the longevity and consistency of this indigenous coping. Findings suggest that Filipino cultural collectivist values, like damayan (helping one another) and bayanihan (community support), are imported within the facility and are manifested in different aspects of inmate-to-inmate and inmate-to-officer relationships. These imported cultural values shape the coping mechanisms towards more developmental and mutual, rather than predatory and individualistic relationships. This paper argues for the official incorporation of the shared governance model as a viable method of prison governance in settings characterized by structural deficits situated within a broader collectivist culture.

Authors

• Sou Lee, Gonzaga University

• Raymund Narag, Southern Illinois University

• Clarke Jones, Australian National University