Pursuing the Horizon of Penal Abolition in Seth Kwame Boateng’s Documentaries

Abstract

Two recent documentaries by award-winning journalist Seth Kwame Boateng, Locked and Forgotten (2015) and Left to Rot (2016), have played an important role in recent Ghanaian prison reform efforts. This paper identifies the ways these documentaries extend beyond a reformist agenda and move towards a more radical vision of penal abolition. By creating a dialogue between Boateng’s documentaries and the analyses and frameworks of penal abolitionism, this paper calls for a remapping of global abolitionist discourse to include critiques of ‘criminal justice’ that are articulated in diverse geographical, cultural and rhetorical locations.

Keywords

• prison
• penal abolition
• Ghana
• journalism
• criminology
• Seth Kwame Boateng