Reconsidering Co-Governance: Systemic Corruption, Caste and Predation in Moldovan Prisons

Abstract There is a growing literature, particularly in southern criminology, on the co-governance produced between prisoners and prison administrations, whether formal or informal. This literature increasingly acknowledges that such arrangements imply corruption and the abuse of power, yet it has tended to retain governance and the production of order as the main utility function of co-governance. Examining data from Moldova, this paper argues that in highly corrupt contexts co-governance may be reorganized to serve a different purpose: the predatory extraction of resources from the governed. We draw on survey and interview data to show that in Moldova a prisoner caste system colludes with corrupt officials to operate a system of extortion based on relations of forced dependency. Conceptually, we therefore characterize these arrangements as prisoner co-predation: a configuration of co-governance in which extraction becomes the organizing logic and the production of order a by-product rather than the goal. In conclusion, we suggest some conditions under which prisoner governance tilts towards predation. We suggest that this outcome is likely not peculiar to Moldova, but that, because of the conceptual emphasis on order as a governance function, cases of it have largely been overlooked in global prison studies.