Zafer Kirac

Zafer Kıraç is transforming Turkey’s closed penal system by building bridges between prisons and society. Bringing some of Turkey’s leading civil organizations (COs) and universities into the prisons, Civil Society in the Penal System (CISST) acts as a platform to provide social and educational support to prisoners and prison personnel.

Zafer has been developing a platform that has become a conveyor of resources and knowledge between civil society and prisons. Through CISST, Zafer provides COs with the knowledge, training, and channels to bring their respective programs into prisons in Turkey. In doing so, he facilitates key interventions to ameliorate prison conditions and introduce rehabilitation opportunities which prepare prisoners for life after prison. Furthermore, Zafer mobilizes Turkey’s leading COs and universities to build public awareness and to form an informal support network for their target groups during and after prison. These partnerships deliver high-quality rehabilitation programs to prisoners as well as prison personnel. The programs also give CO representatives an opportunity to enter and observe life in prisons, fomenting empathetic understanding of prison situations. In turn, COs have increased their capacity to work with prisoners, bringing their resources into the prisons and forming a monitoring function which informs CISST’s reports, policy recommendations, and future programs. CISST also acts as a platform to guide prisoners in their life after prison by connecting them to relevant COs and universities. This program has a special focus on youth but also works with marginalized populations like women, LGBT-identifying community members, and the elderly.

CISST is also the first and only citizen sector initiative to focus on the challenges of prison personnel, management, as well as infrastructure and architecture issues in prisons, offering a unique and comprehensive perspective on the penal systems shortcomings. Zafer believes such a comprehensive perspective on prisons is necessary to open the penal system to change, as is keeping a constructive dialogue with the government based on expertise and facts. CISST’s entrepreneurial way of leveraging and channeling much needed resources and know-how for the penal system, along with its systematic perspective of prisoners, prison staff, and management as all part of the current challenges and future solutions—makes significant impact possible.

Turkey’s penal system has a long history of maltreatment and widespread torture. Despite the government’s recent efforts to end systematic cruelty and to bring facilities on par with international standards, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and other international monitoring mechanisms continue to report serious concerns regarding frequent human rights violations and mistreatment. Several recent scandals, along with the high rates of recidivism (reaching 70 percent), indicate that Turkey’s penal system functions only a means of isolation and punishment, rather than as a key mechanism for the prevention of crime and the rehabilitation of criminals to achieve social cohesion.

There are several reasons behind this failure. Turkey’s prisons are far from having sufficient human and financial resources. Around 150,000 prisoners serve time at approximately 374 institutions across the country each year. For every 100 prisoners, there are only 20 prison personnel, a fraction that lags behind European countries such as Germany or France, where the personnel-to-prisoner ratio is up to four times higher. Rehabilitation programs for prisoners and professional development courses for personnel have been introduced in recent years, but are far from meeting the needs in terms of quality or quantity. Furthermore, the last ten years have seen a significant increase in the overall number of prisoners (i.e. 114 percent surge), further increasing the burden on an already strained system.

In addition to insufficient resources, is the failure to engage communities and civil society to understand prisons and to take an active part in the rehabilitation process. The government is reluctant to let local COs into the prisons, fearing the reactive approach of extremist political and ethnic groups; those dominant in vocalizing the needs of prisoners. As a result, the majority of civil society initiatives concerned with prisons fail to develop comprehensive and constructive approaches to problems in the penal system.

As a result, Turkey’s prisons are not only physically but also socially isolated, creating a culture where prisons are considered a lost cause; without any return on investments or possibility of social integration. The country’s young yet bourgeoning COs do not have prisons on their agenda, and the media only shows interest in the occasional scandal. Additionally, the world of academia doesn’t make efforts to better understand and diagnose the shortcomings of these institutions. This leaves prisons in a vicious cycle—deprived of much needed resources and involvement, it perpetuates social isolation and prolongs social problems, rather than achieving social cohesion.

Bringing some of Turkey’s leading COs and universities into the prisons, CISST provides much needed social and educational support to prisoners and prison personnel. Zafer creates opportunities for opening an otherwise closed system and for interaction between those both inside and outside the penal system. In doing so, CISST also affects civil society and society at-large by increasing the capacity of COs to reach and empower their target groups, both during and after life in prison, as well as help to put prison issues in public debate and discourse.

CISST is unique in that it does not distinguish or discriminate against prisoners based on their convictions, political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, or language, in its engagement. In addition, CISST acknowledges the importance of addressing the needs of previously invisible groups, i.e. the disabled, the elderly, immigrants, and HIV-positive and LGBT populations, who are among those that experience the toughest conditions.

Zafer and CISST have entered 70+ of the 374 prisons in Turkey and implemented numerous training programs and activities for both prisoners and prison personnel through its partnerships with universities and COs. During these partnerships, CISST trains civil society and university representatives to effectively work in prisons, to ensure effective communication with prisoners and prison staff and other key issues. They then go in the prisons together and supervise the implementation of the first round of projects. Many COs continue to work in prisons long after their partnership with CISST is over.

One such example is Zafer’s partnership with youth organizations, which served CISST to identify the challenges faced by youth in continuing their education from prison. Identifying the lack of resources to pay for the courses as a significant barrier, CISST introduced a scholarship fund, which was adopted by the government after three years. Today, CISST continues talks with the government to make distance-learning programs accessible and affordable for young prisoners. Similar improvements were achieved through partnerships with women’s organizations in areas such as women’s health and childcare in prison.

CISST functions as a platform to encourage and empower COs to implement rehabilitation programs and monitor life in prison. In the next phase of programming, Zafer will address the issues of prisoners with special needs, or “invisible” populations. In addition to acting as a civil rehabilitation and monitoring platform for prisons, CISST and its partners sensitize the public and persuade authorities for further reform. They organize talks, workshops, and conferences that tackle the issues of the penal system in conjunction with universities, political parties, and the media, as well as use artists and arts festivals as platforms for education. They also participate in consultation meetings of related government agencies and are acknowledged as experts.

Zafer aims to expand efforts toward reducing the use of prisons by introducing alternatives to imprisonment and by having a greater emphasis on policies and models for social integration after prison. He is also launching local CISST platforms to implement projects and monitor prisons by local COs and universities in ten provinces across the country, to produce a local model the government can use.

Taking action has always been in Zafer’s nature, whether as a child eager to start his first business by selling handmade kites to friends, as a student activist demanding free university education, or as one of the first people going to the 1999 Marmara Earthquake disaster area to participate in relief efforts. All of these instances have come to define Zafer as a person. As a student activist, he was imprisoned for several weeks, which marked him with claustrophobia and a deep concern for people in closed institutions for the rest of his life. During the earthquake relief efforts, Zafer discovered his skills in strategy development, execution and coordination, while also developing a firm belief in the power of citizen initiatives for social change.

Since 2000 Zafer’s been involved in the establishment of several civil initiatives promoting the development of COs in some of Turkey’s most disadvantaged areas. In every project in which he was involved—be it a training program for youth or the launch of new research and publications—there was a link to and benefit for the local prison. In time, Zafer gained experience and built a good reputation among prisoners, prison personnel, and management across the country.

In 2006 Zafer established CISST with a group of like-minded individuals, using his previous efforts and knowledge regarding COs and prisons. Since then, he has dedicated himself to build mechanisms and relationships that will ultimately result in the minimal use of prisons in Turkish society.