Now Lebanon - Prison pathologies - April 15, 2011

Talking to Roumieh Prison Psychologist Rudy Abi Habib

Aline Sara, April 15, 2011



For the 4,000 inmates residing in Roumieh, a prison originally built to hold 1,500, there are 10 working psychologists. One of them is 30 year-old Rudy Abi Habib, who counsels the inmates as part of a program organized by the NGO Association of Justice and Mercy (AJEM). Following last week’s violent riots by detainees and their families demanding better living conditions, NOW Lebanon sat down with Abi Habib to talk about the treatment of prisoners in Roumieh, common mental health problems many suffer from, and the prospects for change.
How are inmates selected for treatment?

Rudy Abi Habib: Our NGO works according to different projects, one to support the refugees, one to support drug addicts, one dedicated to rehabilitating torture victims.
We are a team of doctors, lawyers, psychologists, social workers and nurses, divided between the prison’s four buildings.
We prioritize projects according to funding, which comes from the UN, [Swiss foundation] Drosos, the EU and our own fundraising efforts. Patients are also transferred from a jail doctor or prisoners themselves, who see another inmate doing “crazy stuff.”
What are the most common psychological problems among inmates?
Rudy Abi Habib: To begin with, there are prisoners who enter prison with a psychological problem. In other countries, many would be taken to an asylum, or for clinical treatment — they shouldn’t be in prison.
Secondly, there are those who suffer psychological trauma from the crime and its ensuing incarceration. Somewhere they are feeling guilty.
The third category is those who are neither sick in the prison nor out of it. They are resilient but suffer from the more typical everyday stresses from prison.
And then you have drug addicts, who are a category of their own – approximately 1,500 cases.
Is drug use in Roumieh common?
Rudy Abi Habib:  Yes, and it’s well known. Probably people are benefitting somewhere; we are not sure who. It’s a business.
In the UK, if I’m caught for small drug use, I go to an open jail for a few months. I can still work, and sleep in prison at night because they know that if I am incarcerated, I lose my job, I lose my family, I come out worse.
Here it’s the opposite.
What are some of the most severe cases you have seen as a psychologist?
Abi Habib: The most mindboggling stuff is not psychological. It’s the injustice. Someone who should be in jail for a month and stays three years, an illegal refugee eternally waiting for a settlement.
The government hardly provides them with a mattress or edible food. They and/or NGOs have to provide their own blankets, food, [certain] medicines. Medical care is a mess. They have to wait weeks.
Elsewhere, the government provides or hires an NGO that provides the prisoners with these necessities.
We are currently working on a project to prevent incarceration of people who have schizophrenia and committed crimes upon their hallucination, because the court doesn’t psychologically assess the accused.
What is your take on the recent riots? What is the cause?
Abi Habib: It definitely has a social basis. The prisoners’ living conditions are absurd.
In jail, there are simply no options. For example there are not enough cars to transport the prisoners to the court, so a judge adjourns the trial, and [increases the inmate’s prison stay] by six months. They sleep five on the same mattress.
In Lebanon, things ignite. It was probably 20 to 30 prisoners [who started the riot] and broke everything, burned chairs, mattresses, clothes, fuel used to light the oven. Two of the buildings are now empty from inside.
Conditions are bad to an extent that is unbelievable. 
How are the prisoners feeling post-riot?
Abi Habib: They have anger, frustration. But what do you tell them? Nothing is going to change because the government doesn’t have the means.
I just let them talk. They are just living a stress. But they adapt. If they don’t break, they adapt and live on their basic human instinct for survival.
What do you mean by “break?”
Abi Habib: Break meaning becoming mentally ill with a psychopathology.
The intent of prison is twofold: incarceration, i.e. taking away one’s freedom — the ultimate punishment – and rehabilitation. The prison has a responsibility and obligation to rehabilitate the detainees. But you don’t see that here.  You see the opposite.
There have been reports of prisoners injuring themselves in Roumieh. Why do you think they do this, and do they receive proper medical and psychological treatment after such incidents?
Abi Habib: It’s actually usually a sort of “sick strategic move.” It’s impulsive. It is unrelated to suicidal tendencies, and it is not a cry for attention. For example, a prisoner has been requesting to see a dentist for months, with no response, so he hurts himself to access a doctor.

How would you characterize the relationship between guards and prisoners?
Abi Habib: Complicity . How else? There is a whole dialectic in prison you can’t believe until you see it, regardless of the country, even though elsewhere, it is within limits. 

There’s a reality you can’t deny. You can’t blame the prisoners for rioting; they are not getting the basics. But you can blame them in the way they do it. And you can’t blame the cops for using force to calm them either.

Where do we begin to help change the situation?
Abi Habib: There is no solution, except changing the reality – building more prisons, properly training security guards. You might see the police traffic guy at a street corner one day, and that same officer managing the prison the next day.
Space would be one of the major starting points. Simply having two more buildings would make a difference.
You bring a psychologist to treat a depression whose cause is still present. It’s like beating a dead horse. If you don’t change the system, nothing will.
People ask me, “How do we resolve this psychological problem?” I say it’s not psychological. It’s social.

Psychological treatment precludes some form of opening and possibility for change. But there is no way out for the prisoners, like treating a broken leg without a cast. 

How do you personally manage?
Abi Habib: The minute I back out of the prison, I have to act like I’m leaving another world behind and block it out, otherwise you can’t.

This interview has been condensed and edited