Publication: Assesment of physical violence among prisoners in Mogadishu central prison, Somalia
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2024-05
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Mount Kenya University
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Abstract
Violence is defined as the wilful of use physical force on another person self or
community resulting in trauma, psychological harm, or even death. It may be in the form
of deprivation, emotional or sexual offense, or physical or psychological. In prisons,
various forms of violence are committed globally. However, they are commonly done in
secrecy making it difficult to establish. The main objective was to assess the causes and
effects of physical violence in Mogadishu Central Prison (MCP) in Somalia. The target
population for the study was prisoners in the prison. The study is necessitated by repeated
appeals from some of the local and international human rights organizations that there is
an unreported high level of violence within prisons in the country and that the situation
in prisons is extremely serious warranting evaluation. The study assessed the causes and
gravity of violence committed by prison wardens against the background of the training
they had received. In addition, the research determined assault among prisoners
themselves. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was applied to collect both
quantitative and qualitative data. Systematic sampling was used to select prisoners, while
purposive sampling was used to select key informants. The study used questionnaires,
key informant interviews, and observation checklists as data collection tools.
Quantitative analysis was conducted using SPSS version 27 and both Fisher’s exact test
and Pearson’s Chi-square to test for associations and relationships between variables,
after descriptive analysis had been done. Qualitative analysis was conducted using
thematic analysis. The study found that 94% of the inmates were male whereas 6% were
female, about 52% were married while 34% were single and 14% were divorced, and
that most (46.4%) inmates were young aged between 18-25 years. On the other hand, the
study determined that 68.5% of the prisoners had primary or no educational background,
about 30% had small businesses, 17% were employed and 40% were unemployed. The
overall prevalence of physical violence in the prison was 16.3%, with the majority of
violence being conducted by convicts against other inmates, but also there were instances
of violence committed against prison staff. The prevalence among inmates was 15% and
prisoners against warden/prison staff was 1.3%. The most common types of physical
violence were fist fights (11.8%), flogging (1.6%), use of weapons or other instruments
(1.6%) such as razor blades, throwing shoes at each other, or use of finger rings and
slapping (1.3%). The causes of violence were identified as misunderstanding (6.9%),
disrespect (4.6%), fighting over resources due to overcrowding (3.6%), lack of rules and
regulations (0.6%), and disregard of rules and regulations (0.6%). The effects of violence
included behavioural changes (2.9%), insomnia (2.3%), anxiety (0.7%), and injuries
(4.6%), with 1.6% of the injuries requiring medical attention at the prison medical
facility. In improving the conditions in the prison environment, the study recommends
training for prison staff, improving infrastructure to ease overcrowding, addressing
socioeconomic disparities, and implementing policies to enforce compliance
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Keywords
Violence, force, on, another, person