If you're interested in prisons have a look at last night's Newsnight which featured quite a revealing report on Afghanistan's most notorious prison 'Pul-e-Charkhi'. It was interesting to hear the prison officers say that their aims were quite similar to many western prisons: "the prisoners should be punished, rehabilitated and returned to the community as sound members", but the reality seemed to be that a quite corrupt system created by judges who could 'release people for $20,000' was maintaining a widespread sense of injustice. Also, the control of the Taliban over sections of the prison seemed to add to the feeling that the while it appeared to be an austere and punitive setting, that in some sections the prison officers had seemingly lost their legitimacy.
Here's a link to it on the iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00skxhl/b00skxhd/Newsnight_26_05_2010/
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