ABSTRACT
The protracted heritage of colonial justice systems has signalled significant challenges for example in the case of former British Guyana in terms of penal reform, of Senegal relative to colonial prison architecture, carceral regimes and their post-colonial legacy, and of India on state-led political repression in colonial and post-colonial times. The typology of camps in empire point towards the segregation of carceral populations, Europeans and indigenous strata, with institutional expressions of the latter tracing their roots to labour camps erected by private enterprises.18 Whereas the thread of the concentration camp and carceral colony runs through colonial history also owing to its association with violent conflict and warfare, a shift in policies and discourse can be observed as the punitive element was gradually replaced by one of rehabilitation after 1945. Indeed, the extensive use of prison camps in empire point towards the operation of interlocking “coercive networks” engendered by the colonial state – but also by colonial private enterprises.
