A Little Help

A Little Help

A mesmerized whisper of “wow” involuntarily escaped the lips of most of our team who ascended the hill on Monday to “Luzira Upper,” Uganda’s Maximum Security Prison, home to 3247 inmates. 

The first to arrive were the Revolution film team of Andy (director), Michelle (producer), John (cinematographer), and Tyson (camera assist/editor), and me.  Michelle and Andy had spent a relaxed and friendly afternoon and evening the day before with the Officer–in-Charge (OC) of Luzira, so he was warm and friendly and welcoming.  It only took us twenty minutes to get through security as we skipped two of the steps due a call from the OC to the guards.

The OC welcomed us into his office, which had been modified from the day before to add another eight to ten chairs, thus increasing its seating capacity to about eighteen.  A few minutes of small talk and family-photo-sharing later, he assigned a guard named Ogwang to accompany us on a location scouting tour of the prison.  At this point, we had no cameras.  After being let through the final two layers of security, we were led into the main rectangular courtyard large enough to hold a near-regulation soccer field.

Adjectives and adverbs crowd into my throat, but none can precisely fit the shape of my open mouth to describe what we saw.  A few that are competing for prominence are “raw,” “disturbing,” “unsettling,” and “hopeless.”  Yet at the same time, it is impossible to shake the notion of sameness – when we look into the eyes of these abjectly poor and visibly needy prisoners, whether guilty or not, we can’t help but see ourselves reflected in them in big and small ways.  I don’t want to too sappy, but the film crew has traveled the world and has been knee and neck deep in some of the most challenging conditions in developing countries, and they were quite moved.

We visited the kitchen, the place where prisoners are admitted, and one of the cell blocks where they sleep.  A room the size of a four-car garage housed almost 250 from lock up at 4:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m. the next morning.  Many had mats resembling carpet squares, while others just head to toe and shoulder to shoulder space.

If each video image John and Andy later captured is worth a one Uganda shilling, we’ll all be shillionaires when the film is complete.

While we walked, a prisoner carrying a smooth cylindrical stick (two feet long, one inch thick) walked about three feet to the side of Michelle.  I didn’t notice right away, but she pointed it out to me when our walk was concluding.  She was understandably quite concerned about what appeared to be an armed stalker.  In an effort to reassure her, I explained that he was probably protecting her from the other inmates, but was not entirely sure this was true.  Later in the day, I chatted with this friendly fellow with “RP” emblazoned upon his yellow uniform.

“What does ‘RP’ stand for?” I asked.

“Regimental Police,” he said proudly.

“Ah, you are a police officer among the prisoners?”

“Yes, and I provide security.”

“Oh, so that is why you have the stick?”

“This?  No, it is ceremonial.”

It then hit me that I have seen police parades in Uganda and the guy at the front is always carrying one of these.  It was touching and reassuring that the prisoners took it upon themselves to provide security to Michelle and the rest of the team.

We cut the tour short so the crew could be in position when the students and lawyers arrived.  They had a much more time-intensive experience with security than did we. 

Security at Luzira Upper consists of seven layers.  It is situated on a larger compound of land that actually houses three prisons – Luzira Upper, Murchison Bay, and Luzira Women’s – the latter two of which are medium security.  The first layer of security is an outer vehicle gate to the entire compound where the students exited and were searched.  After reentering their vehicles (a mini-bus and a mini-van), they proceeded uphill for a quarter mile to a guard shack where security personnel stopped the car to question the drivers, and then directed them to a parking lot beyond the outer gates of Luzira.  About thirty yards from the parking lot, they passed on foot through a locked, cut-out prison-bar doorway in a large metal gate that can be opened for vehicles, and then proceeded toward the metal detector and pat-down search area.  The film crew got in among the crowd of nearly fifty Ugandan lawyers, Ugandan law students, American lawyers, and American law students.

The ID-check, pat-down, and metal detector drill took nearly thirty minutes.  Finally, we all marched up to the outer walls of the prison and ducked through a heavily guarded and fortified metal doorway into a fifty by thirty foot holding area.  While we didn’t go directly into the courtyard with the inmates then, if we had, we would have proceeded to a doorway quite similar to the one we had just passed through, but only after the door behind us was securely locked.  The doorway in front of us led into a fifteen by fifteen foot cyclone-fence enclosed box protruding slightly into the courtyard.  The gate behind is locked and secured before we are finally let into the courtyard through another metal doorway manned by a couple guards.

But rather than proceeding directly into the courtyard, we were ushered into the warden’s office where the eighteen chairs mocked the fifty people entering.  Another ten chairs were squeezed in, but it was still standing room only as the warden welcomed us to Luzira.  The crowd shielded the rickety fan and blocked the open windows so as he spoke, I sweated.  A lot.  Beads were racing each other from my shoulder blades to my beltline.  Another set were dive-bombing the northern edge of my socks from the southern border of my undies.  All the while, a piercing “beep, beep, beep” was emanating from the back-up power source to the OC’s computer warning him the prison’s power had once again failed.

Andrew and I stood next to OC as he talked.  Just over the OC’s shoulder was a poster that has become the theme of this trip, at least for me.  It read:

“A little help is better than a lot of sympathy.”

The more I reflected on it, the deeper it burrowed into me.  I spent the first forty-two years of my life quite proud of my sizeable sympathy.  Not anymore.

When the warden finished his overview of the state of the Luzira prison, he led us into a classroom where seventy inmates were seated, quietly waiting for their opportunity to move their cases toward a just resolution.  Andrew opened with a background and overview of the process, and I followed with greetings, introductions, and more specifics.  Ten minutes later, eight teams were interviewing individual inmates.  After months of planning, the Luzira Project was finally in full swing.

From there, Andrew and I headed to the medium security Murchison Bay prison within the same compound.  We sensitized them to the project, after which the OC of that facility began the process of registering those on remand who would like to participate in the plea bargaining process.  By the end of the day, fifty had opted in.

While Andrew and I were at Murchison, the film crew broke into two groups.  Andy stayed with the groups and filmed B-roll and short snippet interviews with students about the cases and their impressions.  Craig Detweiler, Pepperdine film professor who was instrumental in bringing this film project from the idea phase to reality, has been providing technical and advisory assistance to the team.  He stayed with Andy and operated the sound boom.  John, Tyson, and Michelle spent two hours capturing life inside Luzira.  The inside access they were given was unprecedented and the footage they captured was nothing short of amazing.  I don’t have still pictures of what they filmed inside the depths of the prison, but here are a handful from places where the interviews were taking place.

Late in the day, just before we left, one of the prisoners took me for a walk to talk about his case.  He wasn’t part of the group participating in the program (because he is claiming actual innocence on a charge of human trafficking), but we had met last Thursday during my prior visit.  As we walked, he explained to me that he has a PhD in Economics and was a professor at three different universities in England before moving back to Uganda in 2011 to serve as a consultant to the Ministry of Finance.  His British accent, perfect teeth, and intellectual demeanor made his background story perfectly credible.  After a few minutes, Andy appeared with a camera to my right.  I asked my new friend (Dr. Maxwell, which is what the guards call him also) if it was OK for him to be filmed, and he readily agreed.  As Andy moved around us capturing our conversation (without sound), I realized in a panic that Andy wasn’t accompanied by a guard.  More sphincter clenching.  I wasn’t at all worried about my safety, but was concerned about Andy’s and that of his camera.  Fortunately, there haven’t been even any hints of physical danger for us.  In fact, we have noticed a small pack of inmates standing guard and providing us internal protection.

After a great lunch outside the prison gates, it was time for the inmates’ lockup.  Everyone except the film crew headed back the hotel for a team meeting.  The crew interviewed the warden and got a few more shots before returning to the hotel.  On the way home, their van broke down, providing them with another picture of the difficulties of life in Uganda.

By bedtime, everyone was tired, but excited.  Tuesday should be another interesting day.